Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once, when young;
And in the sultry garden-squares,
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.
The nearest we Americans can get to the English cuckoo is the abominable cuckoo clock. The voice of the English cuckoo sounds exactly like the clock, only of course you can’t train him to strike right. In addition to his regular accomplishment, he is a ventriloquist and can throw his voice a tremendous distance. One day, crossing a field in Sussex, I heard the loud double note of the cuckoo, apparently directly behind me. He was in reality a furlong away.
Wordsworth says:
O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.