Poem by Thomas Hardy

Boys Then and Now

‘More than one cuckoo?’
And the little boy
Seemed to lose something
Of his spring joy.

When he’d grown up
He told his son
He’d used to think
There was only one,

Who came each year
With the trees’ new trim
On purpose to please
England and him:

And his son – old already
In life and its ways –
Said yawning: ‘How foolish
Boys were in those days!’

1. V.R. 1819–1901
2. Genitrix Laesa
3. Song from Heine
4. Life and Death at Sunrise
5. Music in a Snowy Street

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