The remnant in Mexico and the Californian wilds, 

 Cuckoo's wno hear with terror that foreboding flute-like 

 voice calling out of the unseen world : thus it 

 was in the Himalayan solitudes of old when 

 the Sanskrit villagers hailed the cuckoo as a 

 divine messenger, Kakila, the bird who knows 

 all things, not only what has happened, but 

 what shall happen. 



She has troubled many minds, this wanderer. 

 It could not be otherwise. What mysterious 

 music, this, when through the grey lands 

 of the north the south wind went laughing 

 on a vast illimitable surge of green and foam 

 of blossom ? One morning, when the missel- 

 thrush was silent and even the skylarks sank 

 through the hazy stillness, a far cry would be 

 heard, a sound from the unknown, a bell out 

 of heaven. It would float bodiless through 

 the blue air, or call softly like an imprisoned 

 echo in the coverts of grey cloud. Then 

 those who heard would know that Summer 

 had ceased from wearing her robe of white 

 and green and yellow, and with sun-browned 

 hands was gathering roses for her May garland, 

 her June coronal. The bird of love is come. 

 The sighing heart, the beating pulse, know it. 

 She is come, voice out of the sea, voice across 

 waters, Aphrodite of sound. Long, long ago 

 this voice, this dim -remembered myth, was 



1 80 



