520 THE CUCKOO. 



Which made me look a thousand ways — 

 In bush and tree and sky. 



To seek thee did I often rove 



Through woods and on the green, 

 And thou wert still a hope — a love — 



Still longed for, never seen. 



And I can listen to thee yet — 



Can lie upon the plain 

 And listen till I did beget 



That golden time again." 



As a cuckoo mentions nothing but its own name, these lines tell 

 why — 



" Once from the town a starling flew, 

 And on the road there met his view 

 A cuckoo, who to him did say — 

 1 What is the news from town to-day ?' 

 Said he, ' The nightingale's sweet lays 

 Receive from all the general praise. 

 The thrush, the blackbird, and the wren 

 Are slightly mentioned now and then." 

 Then said the cuckoo anxiously, 

 ' Pray, tell me what they say of me.' 

 The starling faltered, then replied — 

 That greatly hurt the cuckoo's pride — 

 ' That is a thing I cannot do, 

 Because they never speak of y<>u.' 

 The cuckoo, tossing then his head, 

 In anger to the starling said, 

 ' I'll be revenged, and will, from spite, 

 Sing of myself from morn till night.' " 



Hence, as Tennyson says — 



" To left and right 

 The cuckoo tr>ld his name to all the hills." 



In his " Cuckoo and Nightingale," from Chaucer, Wordsworth 



says — 



" Among lovers it was a common tale 

 That it was good to hear the nightingale 

 Ere the vile cuckoo's note be uttered." 



" And shield us from the cuckoo and her lore, 

 For there is not so false a bird as she." 



Shakespeare also has many bitter allusions to female falsehood. 

 Hamlet, even of his mother, says — " Frailty, thy name is woman" 



no doubt based on Nature's will and warning by the 



sublimest of all "blasphemers," who said — "He that is without 

 sin cast the first stone." Nature's poet seems to take a special 

 pleasure in branding the cuckoo's dupe, the cuckold. In nearly 



