I

I HEARD the voice of my own true love
Ripple the sunny weather.
Then away, as a dove that follows a dove,
We flitted through woods together.

II

There was not a bush nor branch nor spray
But with song was swaying and ringing.
" Let us ask of the birds what means their lay,
And what is it prompts their singing. "

III

We paused where the stichwort and speedwell grew
'Mid a forest of grasses fairy:
From out of the covert the cushat flew,
And the squirrel perched shy and wary.

IV

On an elm-tree top shrilled a misselthrush proud,
Disdaining shelter or screening.
" Now what is it makes you pipe so loud,
And what is your music's meaning?

V

" Your matins begin ere the dewdrop sinks
To the heart of the moist musk-roses,
And your vespers last till the first star winks,
And the vigilant woodreeve dozes. "

VI

Then louder, still louder he shrilled: " I sing
For the pleasure and pride of shrilling,
For the sheen and the sap and the showers of Spring
That fill me to overfilling.

VII

" Yet a something deeper than Spring-time, though
It is Spring-like, my throat keeps flooding:
Peep soft at my mate, — she is there below, —
Where the bramble trails are budding.

VIII

" She sits on the nest and she never stirs;
She is true to the trust I gave her;
And what were my love if I cheered not hers
As long as my throat can quaver? "

IX

So he quavered on, till asudden we heard
A voice that called " Cuckoo! " and fleeted.
" Why all day is your name by yourself, vain bird,
Repeated and still repeated? "

X

Then " Cuckoo! Cuck! Cuck! Cuck-oo! " he called,
And he laughed and he chuckled cheerly;
" Your hearts they run dry and your heads grow bald,
But I come back with April yearly.

XI

" I come in the month that is sweet, so sweet,
Though its sweetness be frail and fickle,
In the season when shower and sunshine meet,
And you reck not of Autumn's sickle.

XII

" I flout at the April loves of men
And the kisses of shy fond maidens;
And then I call " Cuckoo!" again, again,
With a jeering and jocund cadence.

XIII

" When the hawthorn blows and the yaffel mates,
I sing and am silent never;
Just as love of itself in the May-time prates,
As though it will last for ever!

XIV

" And in June, ere I go, I double the note,
As I flit from cover to cover:
Are not vows, at the last, repeated by rote
By fading and fleeting lover? "

XV

A tear trickled down my true love's cheek
At the words of the mocking rover;
She clung to my side, but she did not speak,
And I kissed her over and over.

XVI

And while she leaned on my heart as though
Her love in its depths was rooting,
There rose from the thicket behind us, slow,
O such a silvery fluting!

XVII

When the long smooth note, as it seemed, must break,
It fell in a swift sweet treble,
Like the sound that is made when a stream from a lake
Gurgles o'er stone and pebble.

XVIII

And I cried, " O nightingale! tell me true,
Is your music rapture or weeping?
And why do you sing the whole night through,
When the rest of the world is sleeping? "

XIX

Then it fluted: " My notes are of love's pure strain,
And could there be descant fitter?
For why do you sever joy and pain,
Since love is both sweet and bitter?

XX

" My song now wails of the sighs, the tears,
The long absence that makes love languish;
Then thrills with its fluttering hopes and fears,
Its rapture, — again its anguish.

XXI

" And why should my notes be hushed at night?
Why sing in the sunlight only?
Love loves when 'tis dark, as when 'tis bright,
Nor ceaseth because 'tis lonely. "

XXII

My love looked up with a happy smile,
(For a moment the woods were soundless):
The smile of a heart that knows no guile,
And whose trust is deep and boundless.

XXIII

And as I smiled that her smile betrayed
The fulness of love's surrender,
Came a note from the heart of the forest shade,
O so soft, and smooth, and tender!

XXIV

'Twas but one note, and it seemed to brood
On its own sufficing sweetness;
That cooed, and cooed, and again but cooed
In a round, self-same completeness.

XXV

Then I said, " There is, ringdove, endless bliss
In the sound that you keep renewing:
But have you no other note than this,
And why are you always cooing? "

XXVI

The ringdove answered: " I too descant
Of love as the woods keep closing;
Not of spring-time loves that exult and pant,
But of harvest love reposing.

XXVII

" If I coo all day on the self-same bough,
While the noisy popinjay ranges,
'Tis that love which is mellow keeps its vow,
And callow love shifts and changes.

XXVIII

" When summer shall silence the merle's loud throat
And the nightingale's sweet sad singing,
You still will hear my contented note,
On the branch where I now am clinging.

XXIX

" For the rapture of fancy surely wanes,
And anguish is lulled by reason;
But the tender note of the heart remains
Through all changes of leaf and season. "

XXX

Then we plunged in the forest, my love and I,
In the forest plunged deeper and deeper,
Till none could behold us save only the sky,
Through a trellis of branch and creeper.

XXXI

And we paired and nested away from sight
In a bower of woodbine pearly;
And she broods on our love from morn to night,
And I sing to her late and early.

XXXII

Nor till Death shall have stripped our lives as bare
As the forest in wintry weather,
Will the world find the nest in the covert where
We dwelt, loved, and sang together.