THE cuckoo. 153 



II. 

 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, 



And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks ; 

 When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws ; 



And maidens bleach their summer smocks ; 

 The cuckoo then, on every tree, 

 Mocks married men, for thus sings he, 



Cuckoo ; 

 Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear, 

 Unpleasing to a married ear." 



In the old copies the four first lines of the first stanza 

 are arranged in couplets thus : — 



" When daisies pied, and violets blue, 

 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 

 And lady-smocks all silver white, 

 Do paint the meadows with delight." 



But, as in all the other stanzas the rhymes are alternate, 

 this was most probably an error of the compositor. The 

 transposition now generally adopted was first made by 

 Theobald. 



The notion which couples the name of the cuckoo with 

 the character of the man whose wife is unfaithful to him, 

 appears to have been derived from the Romans, and is 

 first found in the middle ages in France, and in the 

 countries of which the modern language is derived from 

 the Latin. We are not aware that it existed originally 



X 



