What role do the grasshopper and cricket play in the poetry of earth?
Michael Gray
Updated on May 21, 2026
In Keats' 'The Poetry of Earth', the grasshopper and the cricket metaphorically stand for life's pleasures and pain in youth and old age respectively. The grasshopper takes delight in 'summer luxury' and chirps merrily hopping about from hedge to hedge among the "new-mown mead".