84 Bird Day Book 



TO THE CUCKOO 



OBIvlTHE new-comer ! I have heard, 

 I hear thee and rejoice. 

 O cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 

 Or but a wandering voice? 



Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring^! 



Even yet thou art to me 

 No bird, but an invisible thing, 



A voice, a mystery. 



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. 



—Wordsworth. 



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THE RAINMAKER 



STRANGE prophet bird, won't you explain 

 How you foretell the coming rain? 

 You called at an early morning hour, 

 And by ten o'clock we had a shower. 



When no rain falls for weeks and weeks, 

 And hot winds fan our blistering cheeks, 

 And fields grow parched and streams run dry. 

 Then don't you sometimes tell a lie ? 



—A. C. Webb. 



