MUSIC OF THE CRICKETS.

I cannot to the city go, Where all in sound and sight, Declares that nature does not know, Or do a thing aright. To granite wall, and tower, and dome My heart could never cling; Its simple strings are tied to home— To where the crickets sing.

I 'm certain I was never made To run a city race, Along a human palisade, That 's ever shifting place. The bustle, fashion, art and show Were each a weary thing; Amid them, I should sigh to go And hear the crickets sing.

If there, I might no longer be Myself, as now I seem, But lose my own identity, And walk, as in a dream; Or else, with din and crowd oppressed, I 'd wish for sparrow's wing. To fly away, and be at rest, Where free the crickets sing.

The fire-fly, rising from the grass A winged and living light, I would not give for all the gas, That spoils their city sight. Not all the pomp and etiquette Of citizen or king, Shall make my rustic heart forget The song, the crickets sing.

I find in hall and gallery, Their figures tame and faint, To my wild bird, and brook, and tree, Without a touch of paint. And from the sweetest instrument Of pipe, or key, or string, I 'd turn away, and feel content To hear the crickets sing.

O! who could paint the placid moon, That 's beaming through the bough Of yon high elm, or play the tune, That sounds beneath it now? Not all the silver of the mine, Nor human power could bring Another moon like her to shine, Or make a cricket sing.

I know that, when the crickets trill Their plaintive strains by night, They tell us that, from vale and hill, The summer takes her flight. And were there no renewing Power, 'T would be a mournful thing, To think of fading leaf and flower; And hear the crickets sing.

But, why should change with sadness dim Our eye, when thought can range Through time and space, and fly to him, Who is without a change? For he, who meted out the year, Will give another spring: He rolls at once the shining sphere, And makes the cricket sing.

And when another autumn strips The summer leaves away, If cold and silent be the lips That breathed and moved to-day, The time I 've passed with nature's God Will cause no spirit sting, Though I 've adored him from the sod Whereon the crickets sing.