Explore "The Spring Call" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
DOWN Wessex way, when spring's a-shine, / The blackbird's "pret-ty de-urr! " / In Wessex accents marked as mine / Is heard afar and near.
He flutes it strong, as if in song / No R's of feebler tone / Than his appear in "pretty dear," / Have blackbirds ever known.
Yet they pipe "prattie deerh! " I glean, / Beneath a Scottish sky, / And "pehty de-aw! " amid the treen / Of Middlesex or nigh.
While some folk say-perhaps in play- / Who know the Irish isle, / 'Tis "purrity dare! " in treeland there / When songsters would beguile.
Well: I'll say what the listening birds / Say, hearing "pret-ty de-urr! "- / However strangers sound such words, / That's how we sound them here.
Yes, in this clime at pairing time, / As soon as eyes can see her / At dawn of day, the proper way / To call is "pret-ty de-urr! "