“At
eight of a hot morning, the cicada speaks his first piece.
He says of the world: heat.
At eleven of the same day, still singing, he has not changed
his note but has enlarged his theme.
He says of the morning: love.
In the sultry middle of the afternoon, when the sadness of
love and of heat has shaken him, his symphonic soul goes into the
great movement and he says: death.
But the thing isn’t over.
After supper he weaves heat, love, death into a final stanza,
subtler and less brassy than the others.
He has one last heroic monosyllable at his command.
Life, he says, reminiscing,
Life.”
E.B.
White, September 1, 1945