“Midsummer Day”
by
A.A. Milne
from Not That It Matters
There is magic in the woods on Midsummer Day—so people tell me. Titania conducts her revels. Let others attend her court; for myself I will beg to be excused. I have no heart for revelling on Midsummer Day. On any other festival I will be as jocund as you please, but on the longest day of the year I am overburdened by the thought that from this moment the evenings are beginning to draw in. We are on the way to winter.
It is on Midsummer Day, or thereabouts, that the cuckoo changes his tune, knowing well that the best days are over and that in a little while it will be time for him to fly away. I should like this to be a learned article on “The Habits of the Cuckoo,” and yet, if it were, I doubt if I should love him at the end of it. It is best to know only the one thing of him, that he lays his eggs in another bird’s nest—a friendly idea—and beyond that to take him as we find him. And we find that his only habit which matters is the delightful one of saying “Cuckoo.” Continue reading ““Midsummer Day” — A. A. Milne”
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