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Saturday, 20 April 2013

Saturday Rave: Cuckoo Song.

I keep telling myself that if I keep writing about spring, glorious spring, then it'll eventually happen.

And, hey, it has. Sunshine, we've had, and even some warmth.

Here's the beginning of one of the oldest poems in Modern (ish) English.

Summer is y-comen in,
Loude sing, cuckoo!
Groweth seed and bloweth mead
And spring'th the woode now -
Sing cuckoo!

Though actually now I come to look at it,there is something slightly impatient about the injunction to the blasted bird to sing.

Perhaps the anonymous writer of this poem had been having an extra long winter, too.

Sing cuckoo, now! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing cuckoo! Sing cuckoo, now!



Not that I've heard a cuckoo, this year, yet. Personally I think they're all sitting wisely in Africa knitting themselves nice jerseys before they venture north.

Word To Use Today: cuckoo. Well, it's obvious where this word came from. Old French cuckoos go cucu, German ones go kuckkuck, and Greek ones kokkux.





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