Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Fry: It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. Also he got a race car. Is any of this getting through to you?
Twere better far So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
Happy insect! what can beNature's self's thy Ganymede.
Green little vaulter, in the sunny grass,When ev"n the bees lag at the summoning brass.
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.