Poem of the Day: "To the Cuckoo" by William Wordsworth, Poet of the Month

The Songs of Eretz Poem of the Day for June 19, 2014 is "To the Cuckoo" by William Wordsworth, Poet of the Month.  Information about the Songs of Eretz Poet of the Month feature as well as a biographical essay about William Wordsworth may be found here:  http://www.eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2014/06/songs-of-eretz-poetry-review-poet-of.html.

A Cuckoo

To the Cuckoo
William Wordsworth

O blithe New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear;

From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

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.

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessèd Bird! the earth we pace

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for Thee!

In this rhyming ballad, Wordsworth plays with time and memory, seamlessly slipping into the past and back to the present along the aural pathway of the cuckoo's call--a fourth dimensional moment if ever there was one.