by John Clare (1793 - 1864)
The insect world
Language: English
The insect world amid the suns and dew Awake and hum their tiny songs anew, And climb the totter grass and blossoms stem As huge in size as mighty oaks to them; And rushy burnets on the pasture rise As tall as castles to their little eyes. Each leaf’s a town and smooth meadow grass A mighty world whose bounds they never pass; E’en spots no bigger than the husbandman’s Or shepherd’s noontide dwarf shrunk shadow spans Or e’en the milkmaid tripping thro’ the dew, Each space she covers with her slender shoe Seem to their view high woods in which they roam As lorn, lost wand’rers many miles from home Creeping up bents and down whole weary hours And resting oft on the breasts of flowers Till age, in minutes long as years, creeps on, Or waning summer warns them to be gone.
Authorship:
- by John Clare (1793 - 1864) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936 - 2012), "The insect world", published 1966 [voice or unison chorus and piano], from The Insect World, no. 1. [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Mike Pearson
This text was added to the website: 2016-07-10
Line count: 18
Word count: 144