THE CUCKOO'S SILENCE 



THERE is silence now in the woods. That 

 spirit of the south wind, that phantom voice 

 of the green tides of May, has passed : that 

 which was a wandering dream is become a 

 haunting memory. Whence is the cuckoo 

 come, whither does the cuckoo go ? When 

 our leaves grow russet and the fern clothes 

 herself in bronze and pale gold, what land 

 hears that thrilling call in ancient groves, or 

 above old unvisited forests, or where arid 

 declivities plunge into the gathering sands of 

 the desert ? Whither is gone Sinlinda, the 

 summer bird, as the Esthonians call her : she 

 who has been a voice in the far Orkneys (a 

 daughter, it may be, of that cuckoo -queen 

 who bore Modred to King Arthur, Modred 

 the Pict who afterward wrought so great evil 

 upon Arthur and his knights), or cried the 

 sighing of vain love above the hills of the 

 Gael, or in Sweden swung on the north wind 



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