My old tympanum is not always capable of perceiving these subtleties of sound.

The little that reaches me is extremely sweet and most appropriate to the calm of twilight.

Just a little more breadth in your bow-stroke, my dear Green Grasshopper, and your technique would be better than the hoarse Cicada's, whose name and reputation you have been made to usurp in the countries of the north.
Still, you will never equal your neighbour, the little bell-ringing Toad, who goes tinkling all round, at the foot of the plane-trees, while you click up above.

He is the smallest of my batrachian folk and the most venturesome in his expeditions.
How often, at nightfall, by the last glimmers of daylight, have I not come upon him as I wandered through my garden, hunting for ideas! Something runs away, rolling over and over in front of me.

Is it a dead leaf blown along by the wind?
No, it is the pretty little Toad disturbed in the midst of his pilgrimage.