The Cuckoo and the Nightingale is an anonymous Chaucerian poetry.
It is a delicious little debate between the Cuckoo and the Nightingale on the merits and demerits of love. Night angle stands for love and pleasure and the Cuckoo for sober wisdom. There is nothing new about the debater, but there is much freshness and charm in the nature- description of this lovely little piece. It is in a five- lined stanza, the rhythm is light and rapid, and the language is pure and musical. The assembly of birds at the end of the poem recalls Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls.