“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 hu_man_e_ly_ 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._