When daisies pied and violets blue [And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,]1 Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo, then on ev'ry tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo, Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, [When]2 turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer [smocks]3, The cuckoo, then on ev'ry tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo, Cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear.
When Daisies pied
Set by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "When Daisies pied", 1997 [ chorus and piano ]  [sung text checked 1 time]
Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.
Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , "Kevät", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Anonymous/Unidentified Artist) , "Lied. Der Frühling", first published 1870
- NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Arild Bakke) , "Når spraglet tusenfryd", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Stravinsky: reversed.
2 Arne: "And"
3 Arne: "frocks"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
When as the rye [reach'd]1 to the chin, And chop-cherry, chop-cherry ripe within, Strawberries swimming in the cream, And schoolboys playing in the stream; Then, O, then O then O, my true love said, [Till that time]2 come again She could not live a maid!
Authorship:
- by George Peele (1556? - 1596), "The Impatient Maid", appears in The Old Wives' Tale, first published 1595
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Lidy van Noordenburg) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Confirmed with The Book of Elizabethan Verse, ed. by William Stanley Braithwaite, 1907.
1 Barratt, Raynor, Rutter, Warlock: "reach"2 Rutter: "Until that should"
3 Rutter adds:
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo: o word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! Cuckoo, loud sing cuckoo!
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]