BIEDS AND POETS 23 



them. Burke admired them so much that, while on 



a visit to Ediaburgh, he sought the author out to 



compliment him : — 



" Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove ! 

 Thou messenger of spring ! 

 Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, 

 And woods thy welcome sing. 



" What time the daisy decks the green, 

 Thy certain voice we hear ; 

 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 

 Or mark the rolling year ? 



" The schoolboy, wandering through the wood 

 To pull the primrose gay, 

 Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, 

 And imitates thy lay. 



" Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, 

 Thy sky is ever clear ; 

 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 

 No winter in thy year." 



The European cuckoo is evidently a much gayer 



bird than ours, and much more noticeable. 



" Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing 

 ' Cuckoo ! ' to welcome in the spring," 



-says John Lyly three hundred years agone. Its 

 note is easUy imitated, and boys will render it so 

 perfectly as to deceive any but the shrewdest ear. 

 An English lady tells me its voice reminds you of 

 children at play, and is full of gayety and happi- 

 ness. It is a persistent songster, and keeps up its 

 call from morning to night. Indeed, certain parts 

 of Wordsworth's poem — those that refer to the 

 bird as a mystery, a wandering, solitary voice — seem 



