Part 14

* * * * *

Spring is strong and virtuous, Broad--sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath the mould Grains beyond the price of gold. So deep and large her bounties are, That one broad, long midsummer day Shall to the planet overpay The ravage of a year of war.

Emerson.

* * * * *

In wild moor or sterile heath, Bright with the golden furze, beneath O'erhanging bush or shelving stone, The little stonechat dwells alone, Or near his brother of the whin; Among the foremost to begin His pretty love-songs tinkling sound, And rest low seated on the ground; Not heedless of the winding pass, That leads him through the secret grass.

Bishop Chant.

* * * * *

The lark sung loud; the music at his heart Had called him early; upward straight he went, And bore in nature's quire the merriest part.

C. Turner.

* * * * *

HOW VIOLETS CAME BLEW.

Love on a day (wise poets tell) Some time in wrangling spent, Whether the Violets sho'd excell, Or she, in sweetest scent. But Venus having lost the day, Poore Girles, she fell on you, And beat ye so (as some dare say), Her blowes did make ye blew.

Herrick.

* * * * *

April fourteenth, first cuckoo day.

Sussex.

* * * * *

In former times Shropshire labourers used to give up work for the rest of the day when they heard the first note of the cuckoo.

* * * * *

There is an old superstition that where one hears the cuckoo first there one will spend most of the year.

* * * * *

Use maketh maistry, this hath been said alway; But all is not alway as all men do say. In April, the koocoo can sing her song by rote, In June of tune she cannot sing a note: At first koocoo, koocoo, sing still can she do; At last kooke, kooke, kooke, six kookes to one coo.

John Heywood, 1587.

* * * * *

ODE TO THE CUCKOO.

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?

Michael Bruce.