“It is there.  All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, her funeral monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have not been able to have this supremely happy end!

“By the tears of a child the insect’s tomb is watered; and the pious goddess of dawn each morning there makes a libation of drops of dew.”

This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original charm is due to the perfect art of the form.  But the whole thing, as I have said before, is really Greek, and based upon a close study of several little Greek poems on the same kind of subject.  Little Greek girls thousands of years ago used to keep singing insects as pets, every day feeding them with slices of leek and with fresh water, putting in their little cages sprigs of the plants which they liked.  The sorrow of the child for the inevitable death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to have inspired many Greek poets.  With all tenderness, the child would make a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a little white stone above the place to imitate a grave-stone.  But of course she would want an inscription for this tombstone—­perhaps would ask some of her grown-up friends to compose one for her.  Sometimes the grown-up friend might be a poet, in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time.

I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of the Greek poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful sympathy with the real grief of the child.  The expression, “pass, friend,” is often found in Greek funeral inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly upon the dust of the dead.  There is one French word to which I will call attention,—­the word “guerets.”  We have no English equivalent for this term, said to be a corruption of the Latin word “veractum,” and meaning fields which have been ploughed but not sown.

Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this poem, I may turn to the subject of crickets.  There are many French poems about crickets.  One by Lamartine is known to almost every French child.

  Grillon solitaire,
  Ici comme moi,
  Voix qui sors de terre,
  Ah! reveille-toi! 
  J’attise la flamme,
  C’est pour t’egayer;
  Mais il manque une ame,
  Une ame au foyer.

  Grillon solitaire,
  Voix qui sors de terre,
  Ah! reveille-toi
    Pour moi.

  Quand j’etais petite
  Comme ce berceau,
  Et que Marguerite
  Filait son fuseau,
  Quand le vent d’automne
  Faisait tout gemir,
  Ton cri monotone
  M’aidait a dormir.

  Grillon solitaire,
  Voix qui sors de terre,
  Ah! reveille-toi
    Pour moi.

  Seize fois l’annee
  A compte mes jours;
  Dans la cheminee
  Tu niches toujours. 
  Je t’ecoute encore
  Aux froides saisons. 
  Souvenir sonore
  Des vieilles maisons.