Turning the Book Wheel

From Anecdotes of remarkable insects: selected from natural history, and interspersed with poetry by Joseph Taylor (1817)

To the Grasshopper. 

Happy Insect ! blithe and gay 
Seated on the sunny spray, 
And drunk with dew, the leaves among,
Singing sweet thy chirping song. 

All the various season's treasures, 
All the products of the plains, 
Thus lie open to thy pleasures, 
Fav'rite of the rural swains. 

On thee, the Muses fix their choice, 
And Phoebus adds his own. 
Who first inspir'd thy lively voice. 
And tun'd the pleasing tone. 

Thy cheerful note in wood and vale 
Fills every heart with glee ; 
And summer smiles in double charms 
While thus proclaim'd by thee. 

Like Gods canst thou the Nectar sip, 
A lively chirping elf; 
From labour free, and free from care, 
A little God thyself! 

Illustration of insects and flowers, from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung (1730) ( “Caterpillars, Their Wondrous Transformation and Peculiar Nourishment from Flowers” ) this image is from a later translated edition of Merian’s original, which was published in 1679.

The Getty has an excellent online exhibition of some of her other work.