The Birds and Poets 69 



Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! 



Even yet thou art to me 



No bird, but an invisible thing, 



A voice, a mystery; 



The same whom in my school-boy days 

 I listened to; that Cry 

 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. 



O blessed Bird I the earth we pace 

 Again appears to be 

 An unsubstantial, faery place. 

 That is fit home for Thee !" 



The notes of the cuckoo are sometimes soft and 

 ventriloquous in quality and one is likely to be 

 misled into thinking that the bird is far avi^ay, 

 when he is hidden in the foliage close at hand. 

 Maud Keary expressed the same thought as to his 

 retiring, spirit-like character: 



"Primroses and cowslips, 

 Bluebells and sweet may, 

 And a cuckoo calling 

 Far, far away. 



Forget-me-nots and cresses. 

 In the streamlet blue. 

 Fly a little nearer, 

 O cuckoo, do !" 



