This lovely but somewhat disturbing song from Love’s Labour’s Lost uses Shakespeare’s original spelling and is here illustrated with wit and imagination by Peter Hay.
When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And Lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree ,
Mocks marry’d men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When daizies pied, and violets blue,
And Lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree ,
Mocks marry’d men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!