TO THE CUCKOO

 

                TO THE CUCKOO

“To The Cuckoo” is a romantic poem written by the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850). The full poem consists of eight stanzas. What is reproduced here is a two- stanza gist of the poet’s romantic vision about the cuckoo, which is a bird with a call that sounds like its name.

            “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.

 

Wordsworth  loved nature and all its accompanying elements. The stanza of the lyrical poem quoted here are from a pastoral ode to the cuckoo bird.

            To conclude, here is brief description of  Wordsworth’s theory of poetry : “ To choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate and describe them throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language actually used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.”

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G.R.Kanwal

15 July 2024