Saturday, June 21

Summer Solstice

The earliest known poem written in English (composed circa 1226), was written about this day, the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Appropriately, it is the very first entry in Arthur Quiller-Couch's essential anthology, The Oxford Book of English Verse:

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!;
Groweth sed, and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wude nu--sing cuccu.

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu sing cuccu,
sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

1 comment:

Colin Clout said...

You can get a recording of it too.