The Cuckoo's Gone

A WEEK the Cuckoo has been gone;
But ghostly still,
I hear his note resounding on
The hill.

Follow the sound! it is not there;
But faint, but plain,
Its haunting echo fills the air
Again!

That voice, which like an uttered word
Called spring to birth,
Is gone — not elsewhere to be heard
On earth.

But in my heart, that to my brain
Sends beat of sound,
That shifting, lifting voice again
Goes round.

Though distant now — as when winds blow
The drifting cloud —
A vapor voice, remote and low,
Once loud!

O flower of air! blown bloom of sound!
Twin-petaled tune!
From April, all through May, born round
To June;

Where silence was, in, in he came,
Himself a host,
That voice, that tongue of cloven flame,
That ghost! —

Singing again the magic word,
Which seemed to reach
All life, all lands, as each man heard
Its speech!

It filled the house, it filled the air,
The heart, the brain;
Those drops of sound fell everywhere
Like rain!

God! with what ease to waiting hearts
Would come Thy Word,
Wert Thou, through earth’s divided parts,
So heard! —

Couldst Thou, in notes as clear as this,
Since time began,
Have given the secret of life’s bliss
To man;

And with an unconfounded tongue,
When Babel fell,
Rescued the race, while earth was young,
From Hell!

But now nine months my feet must tread
This waiting earth,
Ere that sweet voice again (now dead)
Finds birth.

The wind has blown it from the hill;
The cloud drifts on.
O vapor voice, remote . . . now still. . . .
Now gone!