{
 "id": "edward-thomas/the-cuckoo",
 "title": "The Cuckoo",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edward Thomas",
 "poet_slug": "edward-thomas",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Last Poems",
 "book_slug": "last-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 24,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1918,
  "venue": "Last Poems (1918)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edward-thomas_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22423",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22732",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Collected_Poems/LMsEAQAAIAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Two_Poems/3ycPAAAAQAAJ"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 65,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "That’s the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too well the year when first I failed to hear it⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep “Ho! Ho!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ten times with an angry voice he shouted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ho! Ho!” but not in anger, for that was his way.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He died that Summer, and that is how I remember",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying, “Nay.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now, as you said, “There it is,” I was hearing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not the cuckoo at all, but my man’s “Ho! Ho!” instead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I think that even if I could lose my deafness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cuckoo’s note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}