Explore "The Cuckoo" by Edward Thomas on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That's the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.
When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I know Too well the year when first I failed to hear it -- It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep "Ho! Ho!"
Ten times with an angry voice he shouted "Ho! Ho! " but not in anger, for that was his way.
He died that Summer, and that is how I remember The cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying, "Nay."
And now, as you said, "There it is," I was hearing Not the cuckoo at all, but my man's "Ho! Ho! " instead.
And I think that even if I could lose my deafness The cuckoo's note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.