Poor verdant fool, and now green ice! thy joys,
Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass
The speaker of the poem is addressing the grasshopper in these lines for his foolishness, which made him froze once the cold of winter came. His joys were large but weren't long-lasting and in them he forgot the coming of the inevitable cold, winter and death.
Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally,
As vestal flames; the North Wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly
This Etna in epitome.
The speaker of the poem, the poet himself, talks about his and his friend's, to whom he devoted the poem, work. He talks about their poetry that will be left behind them forever. Their "sacred hearths", meaning their work and influence, will "burn eternally" like "vestal flames". This is an allusion to the Sacred Fire of Vesta, eternal flame, from the Ancient Rome. The "North Wind" is a bringer of cold weather and represents the change of season. It may be an allusion to the god Boreas, from Greek mythology. It may also be an allusion to another Aesop's fable The North Wind and the Sun where the North Wind and the Sun have a strength competition. The North Wind loses because of trying to forcibly make something happen and the Sun wins with calm persuasion.
