The Cuckoo

Related poetry:

1. My Cuckoo Clock I bought a cuckoo clock And glad was I To hear its tick and tock, Its dulcet cry. But Jones, whose wife is young And pretty too, Winced when that bird gave tongue: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! I have a lady friend Whom I would wed, For dalliance should end In bridal bed. Until the thought occurred: […]...
2. Cuckoo Song (Spring begins in southern England on the 14th April, on which date the Old Woman lets the Cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield Fair locally known as Heffle Cuckoo Fair.) Tell it to the locked-up trees, Cuckoo, bring your song here! Warrant, Act and Summons, please, For Spring to pass along here! Tell old […]...
3. The Cuckoo The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight, With narrow pointed wings Whews o’er our heads-soon out of sight And as she flies she sings: And darting down the hedgerow side She scares the little bird Who leaves the nest it cannot hide While plaintive notes are heard. I’ve watched it on an old oak tree […]...
4. My Home This is the place that I love the best, A little brown house, like a ground-bird’s nest, Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, Summer retreat of the birds and bees. The tenderest light that ever was seen Sifts through the vine-made window screen Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls On home-made carpets and […]...
5. Spring When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he: ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks […]...
6. Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In The Cuckoo's Month Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo’s month, Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan’s hill, As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time; Time, in a folly’s rider, like a county man Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel, Drives forth my men, my children, from the […]...
7. Camouflage Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds, “I’ve got a letter here,” he said, “that no one’s understood, Addressed as follows: ‘To the bird that’s like a piece of wood.’ “The soldier bird got very cross it wasn’t meant for her; […]...
8. The Caged Skylark As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells- That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in […]...
9. Last Week Oh, the new-chum went to the backblock run, But he should have gone there last week. He tramped ten miles with a loaded gun, But of turkey of duck saw never a one, For he should have been there last week, They said, There were flocks of ’em there last week. He wended his way […]...
10. The Robin's my Criterion for Tune The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune Because I grow where Robins do But, were I Cuckoo born I’d swear by him The ode familiar rules the Noon The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom Because, we’re Orchard sprung But, were I Britain born, I’d Daisies spurn None but the Nut October fit Because, through dropping it, […]...
11. When on a Summer's Morn When on a summer’s morn I wake, And open my two eyes, Out to the clear, born-singing rills My bird-like spirit flies. To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush, Or any bird in song; And common leaves that hum all day Without a throat or tongue. And when Time strikes the hour for sleep, Back in […]...
12. A Lyric Day I deem that there are lyric days So ripe with radiance and cheer, So rich with gratitude and praise That they enrapture all the year. And if there is a God babove, (As they would tell me in the Kirk,) How he must look with pride and love Upon his perfect handiwork! To-day has been […]...
13. Why Do Birds Sing? Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature’s self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood […]...
14. Because the Bee may blameless hum Because the Bee may blameless hum For Thee a Bee do I become List even unto Me. Because the Flowers unafraid May lift a look on thine, a Maid Alway a Flower would be. Nor Robins, Robins need not hide When Thou upon their Crypts intrude So Wings bestow on Me Or Petals, or a […]...
15. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
16. Nature the Gentlest Mother is Nature the Gentlest Mother is, Impatient of no Child The feeblest or the waywardest Her Admonition mild In Forest and the Hill By Traveller be heard Restraining Rampant Squirrel Or too impetuous Bird How fair Her Conversation A Summer Afternoon Her Household Her Assembly And when the Sun go down Her Voice among the Aisles […]...
17. The Nightingale's Nest Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove, And list the nightingale – she dwells just here. Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear The noise might drive her from her home of love ; For here I’ve heard her many a merry year- At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day, As though […]...
18. Musicians wrestle everywhere Musicians wrestle everywhere All day among the crowded air I hear the silver strife And walking long before the morn Such transport breaks upon the town I think it that “New Life”! If is not Bird it has no nest Nor “Band” in brass and scarlet drest Nor Tamborin nor Man It is not Hymn […]...
19. When I was a Bird I climbed up the karaka tree Into a nest all made of leaves But soft as feathers. I made up a song that went on singing all by itself And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end. There were daisies in the grass under the tree. I said just to try them: “I’ll […]...
20. Trees (For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden) I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest […]...
21. A Great Time Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad, Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord, How rich and great the times are now! Know, all ye sheep And cows, that keep On staring that I stand so long In grass that’s wet from heavy rain A rainbow and a cuckoo’s […]...
22. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
23. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
24. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
25. Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering. The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: A bird at evening flying to its nest Tells me of One who had no place of […]...
26. Postponement SNOW-BOUND in woodland, a mournful word, Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird, Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard, Wearily waiting: “I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, But the passers eyed and twitted me, And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he, Cheerily mating!’ “Fear-filled, I stayed […]...
27. Some Clouds Now that I’ve unplugged the phone, No one can reach me At least for this one afternoon They will have to get by without my advice Or opinion. Now nobody else is going to call & ask in a tentative voice If I haven’t yet heard that she’s dead, That woman I once loved Nothing […]...
28. Sonnet to the Nightingale O nightingale that on yon blooming spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love. O if […]...
29. The straw parlor Way up at the top of a big stack of straw Was the cunningest parlor that ever you saw! And there could you lie when aweary of play And gossip or laze in the coziest way; No matter how careworn or sorry one’s mood No worldly distraction presumed to intrude. As a refuge from onerous […]...
30. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
31. Snow In the gloom of whiteness, In the great silence of snow, A child was sighing And bitterly saying: “Oh, They have killed a white bird up there on her nest, The down is fluttering from her breast!” And still it fell through that dusky brightness On the child crying for the bird of the snow....
32. Farewell To Verse In youth when oft my muse was dumb, My fancy nighly dead, To make my inspiration come I stood upon my head; And thus I let the blood down flow Into my cerebellum, And published every Spring or so Slim tomes in vellum. Alas! I am rheumatic now, Grey is my crown; I can no […]...
33. The Landrail How sweet and pleasant grows the way Through summer time again While Landrails call from day to day Amid the grass and grain We hear it in the weeding time When knee deep waves the corn We hear it in the summers prime Through meadows night and morn And now I hear it in the […]...
34. To The Nightingale O Nightingale! that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love; O, if […]...
35. I Will Not Fight I will not fight: though proud of pith I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my breast I deem that silence serves me best: So having not a word to say, Contemptuous I turn away. I will not fret: my rest of life Free I will keep from hate and strife; […]...
36. The Sun Has Set The sun has set, and the long grass now Waves dreamily in the evening wind; And the wild bird has flown from that old gray stone In some warm nook a couch to find. In all the lonely landscape round I see no light and hear no sound, Except the wind that far away Come […]...
37. Premonition At Twilight The magpie in the Joshua tree Has come to rest. Darkness collects, And what I cannot hear or see, Broken limbs, the curious bird, Become in darkness darkness too. I had been going when I heard The sound of something called the night; I had been going but I stopped To see the bird restrain […]...
38. The Exposed Nest You were forever finding some new play. So when I saw you down on hands and knees I the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, I went to show you how to make it stay, If that was your idea, against the breeze, And, if you […]...
39. Critic and Poet: an Epilogue No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define what is a bird, To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure and to note the scale Whereon its song might possibly be heard. Thus far, no farther; so he spake the word. […]...
40. 9. The Ploughman's Life AS I was a-wand’ring ae morning in spring, I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing; And as he was singin’, thir words he did say,- There’s nae life like the ploughman’s in the month o’ sweet May. The lav’rock in the morning she’ll rise frae her nest, And mount i’ the air wi’ […]...