The Cuckoo by Thomas James Wise

Abiding an appointment made, / Upon the weed-grown steep I stayed, / One morning mild when May was new, / And fresh the down was fraught with dew. / The meads were flowering, bright the woods, / The branches yielding thousand buds. / My lips employed in song the while / On Morfydd of the merry smile. / 'Twas then as round I cast my eye / With mighty wish the maid to spy; / Though, howsoe'er my sight I strained, / No glimpse of Morfydd I obtained. / I heard the cuckoo's voice arise, / Singing the song which most I prize. / To each Bard true most sweet I trow / His music on the mountain's brow. / Therefore, as called by courtesy, / I greeted him in poesy.

"Good day, dear Cuckoo, with thy strain / A herald thou from heaven's domain; / To us the tidings thou dost bear / Of summer, blissful season fair. / Of summer which to greenwood shade / Entices forth the Bard and maid; / Which decks with foliage dense the grove, / And through all nature breathes of love. / O, dear to me that note of thine, / It seasons love like choicest wine; / Whilst, doating fondness to chastise, / What cutting taunt in ‘Cuckoo' lies! / But, pretty bird, I pray declare / Where lingereth now my lady fair?"

"O, poet, what delusion great / Doth fill this year thy foolish pate? / 'Tis harbouring a useless pain / One thought of her to entertain. / With all her store of winning charms, / She weds her to another's arms. / Believe me, when I say to thee / A mate of thine she may not be."

"Hush, hush, I'll not believe thy voice, / Dare not defame my bosom's choice. / That nymph, the fairest 'neath the sun, / Has sworn an oath, a solemn one; / She vowed by her baptismal rite, / Beneath the bough one blessed night, / Her hand my own enclasping hard, / To live and die with me, her Bard. / The minister that mystic night / Was Madog Benfras, matchless wight. / Her suitors all may vainly sigh, / How should she wed, whom wed have I? / 'Tis false, O Bird, what thou dost state, / And waste of time with thee to prate. / Folly and drunkenness, 'tis plain, / Have got possession of thy brain. / Hence with thy news, and get thee cool, / Thou art, I fear, a very fool!"

"O, Dafydd, who the fool but thou, / Talking this guise beneath the bough? / Another husband chooses she, / Whose charms deceitful captured thee. / The Damsel of the neck of snow / Is now another's wife, I trow. / To love another's looks not well, / The Bow Bach owns the blooming belle."

"For what thou'st sung within the grove, / With malice filled, about my love, / May days of winter come with speed, / The summer and the sun recede; / Hoar frost upon the foliage fall, / The wood and branches withering all. / And thou with piercing cold be slain, / Thou horrid bird of hateful strain!"

{21} These stanzas should be compared with "The Elves", printed in "The / Nightingale", "The Valkyrie and Raven", "and Other Ballads", 1913, pp. / 25-26.