The crickets and the kine. A parable

“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.” —From Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France

 A farmer sat upon his porch along

With his two sons; As evening fell the sound

Of crickets and their endless chirping grew.

Those insects of the hour, though few, can buzz

With such ferocity that even thought

Is caught within their powerful control.

Tonight their songs of discontent arose

As one united voice, a restless force,

Commanding both the farmer and his sons.

The chirping burrowed in their brains this one

Incessant whine:

“Kill the kine; kill the kine!”

According to the ancient custom, so

Before the sun our farmer rose to work.

He said a prayer for daily bread and then

Without a second thought continued to

The duties of the day. No more was heard

Hypnotic chirping from the pastureland—

Morning left no memory of the demon

Voice obeyed the night before. Dawn disclosed

The works of night in unforgiving light:

The bleeding cattle on a thousand hills!

Not since Ulysses’ sailors sacrificed

The sun god’s herd has such a sight been seen.

Returning to the farmhouse then he found

His smiling boys at breakfast board; he looked

At them and mumbled all that he could think:

“No milk to drink, my boys, no milk to drink.”