That’s the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.
When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I know
Too well the year when first I failed to hear it –
It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep ‘Ho! Ho!’
5 Ten times with an angry voice he shouted
‘Ho! Ho!’ but not in anger, for that was his way.
He died that Summer, and that is how I remember
The cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying, ‘Nay.’
And now, as you said, ‘There it is!’ I was hearing
10 Not the cuckoo at all, but my man’s ‘Ho! Ho!’ instead.
And I think that even if I could lose my deafness
The cuckoo’s note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.