Ambarvalia/Burbidge/To a Cuckoo in Autumn

by Thomas Burbidge

TO A CUCKOO IN AUTUMN.

O sadly sung—or sadly heard!
How came into thy throat,
O Cuckoo blithe, thou vernal bird,
That melancholy note?

The fields are fading with the year,
An autumn sadness fills
The pallid pastures far and near,
And weighs upon the hills.

With faded leaves upon the breeze,
That wanton hiccup goes,
And where amid dismantling trees
The swollen river flows.

O Cuckoo, timeless in thy glee!
Thou hast undone thy power
For me, by singing joyfully
In this ungenial hour.

Fond creature, if thou couldst but know
The charm thou dost destroy!
May nothing in the world below
Belong alone to joy?

Sad Voice, so blithe when Heaven and Earth
Are meeting in the Spring,
Did we not know before that mirth
May be a mournful thing?