To the Cuckoo

William Wordsworth

Teacher card

Published: 1807, in Poems in Two Volumes, volume 2
Length: 32 lines, 184 words, 1 word in 31 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: spring
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

O blithe New-comer! I have heard,I hear thee and rejoice:O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass,I hear thy restless shout:From hill to hill it seems to pass,About, and all about!

To me, no Babbler with a taleOf sunshine and of flowers,Thou tellest, Cuckoo! in the valeOf visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, Darling of the Spring!Even yet thou art to meNo Bird; but an invisible Thing,A voice, a mystery.

The same whom in my School-boy daysI listen'd to; that CryWhich made me look a thousand ways;In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often roveThrough woods and on the green;And thou wert still a hope, a love;Still long'd for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;Can lie upon the plain.And listen, till I do begetThat golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we paceAgain appears to beAn unsubstantial, faery place;That is fit home for Thee!

William Wordsworth (died 1850), Poems in Two Volumes, volume 2 (1807), lines 1042–1080 of Project Gutenberg ebook #8824. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 32 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#wo-cuckoo

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/wordsworth-to-the-cuckoo · popplepoetry.com