Spring

I love Shakespeare, which is partially the reason why I decided to choose this one. It's a little tricky at first. The vocabulary used and the general way of how it was written made me confused a little, but reading it over and over helped to break things down. 

This starts out by giving us a rather lovely scene: 

"When daisies pied and violets blue
And ladysmocks all silver-white
And cuckoobuds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight"

And then we get the first glimpse of something a little darker:

"The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!"

Aside from absolutely loving that stanza, it brings in something negative. Like, the most obvious, of married men being unhappy. But with what? Their wives? Their lives? Their choices they made? 

A footnote at the bottom of the page made me stop, and I had to look it up to understand, and then the meaning behind the poem was clear. Or at least clearer than before. 

Shakespeare uses the word "cuckoo" repeatedly, and it's meant--to be blunt--to be used as a sex joke. "Cuckoo" sounds like "cuckold", which the dictionary tells me is the husband of an unfaithful wife. "Unpleasing to a married ear" now makes more sense, because a husband--no matter what time period--doesn't want to hear that his wife is cheating on him.