The cuckou song Sumer is ycomen in, Loude sing cuckou! Groweth seed and bloweth meed, And springth the wode now. Sing cuckou! Ewe bleteth after lamb, Loweth after calve cow, Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth, Merye sing cuckou! Cuckou, cuckou, Wel singest thou cuckou: Ne swik thou never now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-5axHaBlvo&feature=related

Summer has come, Loudly sing cuckoo Summer has come, Loudly sing cuckoo! Groweth seed and blooms mead And springs the wood now. Sing cuckoo! Ewe bleats after lamb, Lows after calf the cow, Bullock starts, buck farts; Merrily sing cuckoo! Cuckoo! cuckoo! Well sing thou cuckoo. Cease thou never now! Sing cuckoo now, Sing cuckoo! Sing cuckoo, Sing cuckoo now!

Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales Prologue WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale fowles maken melodye, That slepen al the night with open ye, (So priketh hem nature in hir corages: Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

T. S. Eliot The Waste Land April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar kine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.