English Literature for Boys and Girls

by H. E. Marshall

Cuckoo, cuckoo, well singeth thou cuckoo,
Thou art never silent now.
Sing cuckoo, now, sing cuckoo,
Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now!"

*Turns to the green fern or "vert." Vert is French for
"green."

Is that not pretty? Can you not hear the cuckoo call, even though the lamps may be lit and the winter wind be shrill without?

But I think it is prettier still in its thirteenth-century English. Perhaps you may be able to read it in that, so here it is:—

"Sumer is ycumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu;
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu,
Sing cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu.

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu cuccu,
Ne swike thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!"*

*Ritson's Ancient Songs.

BOOKS TO READ

Stories of Robin Hood, by H. E. Marshall. Stories of the
Ballads, by Mary Macgregor. A Book of Ballads, by C. L. Thomson.
Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Everyman's Library).