The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) / Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

GRASSHOPPERS.

“Sauter de branche en branche.”

The stream may flow, the wheel may run,
The corn in vain be brown’d in sun,
And bolting-mills, like corks, be stoppers;
Save that their clacks, like noisy rain,
Make floor of corn in root and grain
By virtue of their Hoppers.

And London sportsmen (sportsmen?) meet
To shoot at sparrows twenty feet
Like ginger-beer escaping,—poppers:
Pigeons are thus humanely shot.
And thus they go to pie and pot,
Poor pulse and crum-b-led Hoppers!

Trees in their shrouds resemble men,
And they who “cut may come again,”
To take their tithe as legal loppers:
Soldiers and sailors, after wars,
In spite of glory, fame, and stars,—
Are they not pen-sion Hoppers?

Yet more than these, in summer’s even,
There hop, between the blades of Heaven
And hailstones pearly droppers,
Insects of mirth, whose songs so shrill
Delight the ears of vale and hill,
The grassy, green—Grass-Hoppers.

Aug. 1827. J. R. P.

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For the Table Book.