Sing Cuccu

Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccu
ne swik þu nauer nu
—“Sumer is icumen in”

What follows was spurred, first of all, by reading a footnote to an essay on the medieval English lyric “Sumer is icumen in,” on the use of “sumer” to mean “April,” not “summer.” It was spurred secondly by listening to “Sumer is icumen in” on YouTube and being struck especially by the lines quoted above: “Well singest thou, cuckoo; stop thou never now.”

Comes April, and the mourning doves
fill all its hours with falling note,
as cottonwood on breeze-breath moves
in the bright sun, a drifting mote.
Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu.

The wildflowers almost past their time
still bloom along the interstates,
and young men come into their prime,
impatient for the world that waits.
Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu.

Sing, ye doves, your falling notes;
days stretch out beneath the sun.
Tireless be your mournful throats:
Keep the spring that tries to run.
Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu.

Summer comes when silence falls,
storms that turn the boys to men.
Keep the spring here with your calls.
When will April come again?
Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu, cuccu.

‘Sumer is icumen in’ [Whole folio] ‘Sumer is icumen in’, a vocal composition for several voices; it is probably the most celebrated piece of English medieval music. The melody is one of the earliest known examples of what is now the major mode, and the earliest example of ground-bass. Besides the English secular text ‘Sumer is icumen in’, the melody is provided with a Latin sacred one ‘Perspice Christicola’, and it is the earliest known manuscript in which both secular and sacred words are written to the same piece of music. Catalogue entry: Harley MS 978- Illustrated catalogue – Online viewer (Info), CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31452995