`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will;
And when, at callow-time, you think to find
The sparrow’s stationary chirp, lo! bursts
Voyaging voice to glorify the Spring.’
Alfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or simply refused the honor. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895.