Explain the contrast of theme in John Keats' poem, "On the Grasshopper and Cricket." Explain in full details.

John Keats' poem, "On the Grasshopper and Cricket," is a
wonderful poem.

Keats, as a second-generation Romantic
poet, pays special attention to nature in his poem, which is a characteristic of this
kind of writing: the return to, and admiration for,
nature.

Keats' first line tells use that "the poetry of
earth is never dead." He states that it as a living thing, and, indeed, in his poem he
proves just that: the creatures come alive to the
reader.

First of all, Keats allows the reader to care for
the grasshopper immediately, personifying him as a creature who after he has had his
"fun" in the warm weather, he finds a weed to relax under while he makes his "summer
song."

The contrast the reader is presented with (in the
change of seasons) is artfully joined with the line:

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The poetry of earth is ceasing
never...

...as Keats repeats
the sentiment with which he began the poem. Even after the summer ends, and humans
retire inside, missing the lushness of trees, the "mowing of mead," and the sounds of
birds and grasshoppers, the cricket continues the poetry of earth, in a way taking up
the grasshopper's job.

The quiet of winter is disturbed,
near the warmth of the stove, by the shrill "call" of the cricket, continuing nature's
song:

...from
the stove there shrills 

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing
ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, 

The
Grasshopper's among some grassy
hills.

In drowsiness, the
grasshopper's call is echoed in the sounds of the
cricket.

Our two contrasts are the seasons: summer and
winter, and the song of grasshopper and cricket. And though the elements of these
contrasts are very different in their extremes, the poetry of nature does not end with
the season, but lives on, simply in a different form.