Cuckoo

Now that the days are growing light and long,
I hear the cuckoo singing his mad song,
The song that is a stranger to the arts,
That never ends, because it never starts.

For his one thought the cuckoo has one word,
A disyllabic and descending third.
At last his wife grows hopelessly depressed
And lays her eggs in someone else’s nest;

The cuckoo has no time for building such,
His single thought obsesses him too much.
He tires at last, for after many days
He hiccups in the middle of his phrase;

Then he falls dumb, and lays aside his harp,
That has two strings: a minor third, but sharp.
Or else it is a major third, but flat.
One loses patience with a bird like that.