178 SELECT POETRY

Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest grasshoppers ' that are ;
Theirs is but a summer song,
Thine endures the winter long,
Unimpaired, and shrill and clear,
Melody throughout the year.

Cowper

 

THE LOCUST.

THE locust is fierce, and strong, and grim,
And an armed man is afraid of him:

He comes like a winged shape of dread,
With his shielded back and his armed head,
And his double wings for hasty flight,

And a keen, unwearying appetite.

He comes with famine and fear along,

An army a million million strong ;

The Goth and the Vandal, and dwarfish Hun,?
With their swarming people, wild and dun,
Brought not the dread that the locust brings.
When is heard the rush of their myriad wings.

From the deserts of burning sand they speed,
Where the lions roam and the serpents breed,
Far over the sea, away, away !

And they darken the sun at noon of day.

1 In allusion to the insect which is the subject of the pre.
ceding poem.

2 Goths, Vandals, and Huns—barbarian nations of the
north, celebrated in history as the invaders, and at last, the
destroyers, of the Roman empire.