Poems
Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!Thou messenger of Spring!Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,And woods thy welcome ring.
What time the daisy decks the green,Thy certain voice we hear:Hast thou a star to guide thy path,Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with theeI hail the time of flowers,And hear the sound of music sweetFrom birds among the bowers.
The schoolboy, wand’ring through the woodTo pull the primrose gay,Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,And imitates thy lay.
What time the pea puts on the bloom,Thou fli’st thy vocal vale,An annual guest in other lands,Another Spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,Thy sky is ever clear;Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,No Winter in thy year!
O could I fly, I’d fly with thee!We’d make, with joyful wing,Our annual visit o’er the globe,Companions of the Spring.
Words in this poem
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- visitant n.
- One who visits; a guest; a visitor. [L. visitans, -antis; p. pr.: cf. F. visitant.]
- schoolboy n.
- A boy belonging to, or attending, a school.
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poems is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Logan, Poems, (1748–1788), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-john-logan/to-the-cuckoo.html, id L16169.
Form and metre
To the Cuckoo is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A grove · springA · seat · ringA
- 2 -A-A green · hearA · path · yearA
- 3 -A-A thee · flowersA · sweet · bowersA
- 4 -A-A wood · gayA · hear · layA
- 5 -A-A bloom · valeA · lands · hailA
- 6 -A-A green · clearA · song · yearA
- 7 -A-A thee · wingA · globe · springA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| Thou messenger of Spring! | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, | 9 | ·/˘˘/·/˘· |
| And woods thy welcome ring. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| What time the daisy decks the green, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thy certain voice we hear: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Hast thou a star to guide thy path, | 8 | ········ |
| Or mark the rolling year? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Delightful visitant! with thee | 8 | ˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| I hail the time of flowers, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And hear the sound of music sweet | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| From birds among the bowers. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The schoolboy, wand’ring through the wood | 8 | ·/······ |
| To pull the primrose gay, | 6 | ···/·· |
| Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear, | 8 | ········ |
| And imitates thy lay. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| What time the pea puts on the bloom, | 8 | ········ |
| Thou fli’st thy vocal vale, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| An annual guest in other lands, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| Another Spring to hail. | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| Thy sky is ever clear; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| No Winter in thy year! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| O could I fly, I’d fly with thee! | 8 | ········ |
| We’d make, with joyful wing, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Our annual visit o’er the globe, | 10 | /˘/˘˘/˘··· |
| Companions of the Spring. | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.