Jump on a grass-blade, and balance and swing;
Soon you'll be light as a gnat on the wing,
Gay as a grasshopper, too!"

Ant trudged along, while the grasshopper sung,
Minding her business and holding her tongue,
Until she got home her own people among;
But these were her thoughts on the road.
"What will become of that poor, idle one
When the light sports of the summer are done?
And, where is the covert to which he may run
To find a safe winter abode?

"Oh! if I only could tell him how sweet
Toil makes my rest and the morsel I eat,
While hope gives a spur to my little black feet,
He'd never pity my lot!
He'd never ask me my burden to drop,
To join in his folly--to spring, and to hop;
And thus make the ant and her labor to stop,
When time, I am certain, would not.

"When the cold frost all the herbage has nipped,
When the bare branches with ice-drops are tipped,
Where will the grasshopper then be, that skipped
So careless and lightly to-day?
Frozen to death! '_a sad picture_,' indeed,
Of reckless indulgence and what must succeed,
That all his gymnastics can't shelter or feed,
Or quicken his pulse into play!