they have made the day especially their own; they are its annalists. A poet's in vitation to his mistress to enjoy the festivity, is historical; if he says to her, together let us range," he tells her for

what; and becomes a grave authority to the grave antiquary. The sweetest of all British bards that sing of our customs, beautifully illustrates the May-day of England:

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morne
Upon her wings presents the God unshorne.
See how Aurora throwes her faire
Fresh-quilted colours through the aire;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herbe and tree.

Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an houre since, yet you not drest,

Nay! not so much as out of bed;
When all the birds have matteyns seyd,
And sung their thankfull hymnes; 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner ther the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seene

To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and greene,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gowne or haire;
Feare not, the leaves will strew
Gemms in abundance upon you;

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

Till

Come, and receive them while the light hoops et tỉ

Hangs on the dew-locks of the night

And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himselfe, or else stands still

you come forth, Wash, dresse, be brief in praying
Few beads are best, when once we goe a Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, comming, marke
How each field turns a street, each street a parke
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

??

Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this,
An arke, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove;

As if here were those cooler shades of love

Can such delights be in the street,

3. And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad, and let's obay
The proclamation made for May :

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying
But, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying.

There's not a budding boy or girle, this day,
But is got up, and gone to bring in May.
A deale of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have dispatcht their cakes and creame
Before that we have left to dreame;

And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth ·
Many a green gown has been given;

•-1300 mɔn eduMany a kisse, both odde and even ;
Many a glance, too, has been sentin

From out the eye, love's firinamento de

Many a jest told of the keye's betraying out any gola (95{{ aniliowa arque This night, and locks pickt; yet w'are not a Maying oros vdo1972 Ja to quis sibul 36 sup

Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime ord focuso moed is vis

baxiw otri le bond. And take the harmlesse follie of the time, - We shall grow old apace and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short, and our dayes run As fast away as do's the sunne; * NC 9.09-75 9.T as a vapour, or a drop of raine Once lost, can ne'r be found againe; So when or you or I are made A fable, song, or fleeting shade; All love, all liking, all delight Lies drown'd with us in endless night." Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying sd not woHerrickát 1970 utely sunk odł to suern bi angvætt I es bar dred men, women, and children followyng it, with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they

A gatherer of notices respecting our pastimes says, "The after-part of May day is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall Poll, which is called a May Poll;

13

ty of wol

which being placed in a convenient part bough grounde greene

of the village, stands there, as it were consecrated to the Goddesserd to it, in of Flowers,

was

without the least violation
the whole circle of the year." One who
an implacable enemy to popular
sports relates the fetching in of the
May" from the woods. "But," says he,
"their cheefest jewell they bring from
thence is their Maie poole, whiche they
bring home with
or fourtie yoke
thus. They have teate veneration, as
of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nose-
gaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his
hornes, and these oxen drawe home this
Maie poole, which is covered all over
with flowers and hearbes, boundé rounde
aboute with stringes, from the top to the
bottome, and sometyme painted with vá-
or three hun-
riable colours, with twoo o

it,

haules, then fall Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And If they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself."

-897 901 28 пoiroig at borse peh -29, 1979 I have seen the Lady of the Maycs 97.marxa 900 90 gesi gypse odt otat 98% Set in an arbour (on holy-day) ad not fire grad, zi 19913 Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swaines bie 731294 với Dance with the maidens to the bag-pipes straines, When envious night commands them to be gone, cherr Call for the merry youngsters one by one,

3

burwak toicAnd, for their well performance, soon disposes, To this a garland interwove with roses,

To that a carved hooke, or well-wrought scrip;
Gracing another with her cherry lip;
To one her garter; to another, then,
A handkerchiefe, cast o'er and o'er again ;
And none returneth emptie that hath spent
His paines to fill their fural merriment.

A poet, who has not versified, (Mr.
Washington Irving,) says, “I shall never

*Bourne..

forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the

of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which the Deva wound its wizard stream, my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia-One can readily ima

Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the fiver from the quaint little city of Chester. I had already been carried back into former days by the antiquities of that venerable place; the examination of which is equal to turning over the pages of a black-letter_gine what a gay scene it must have been volume, or gazing on the pictures in in jolly old London, when the doors Froissart. The May-pole on the margin were decorated with flowering branches, of that poetic stream completed the illu- when every hat was decked with hawsion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths thorn; and Robin Hood, friar Tuck, of flowers, and peopled the green bank Maid Marian, the morris-dancers, and all with all the dancing revelry of May-day. the other fantastic masks and revellers The mere sight of this May-pole gave a were performing their antics about the glow to my feelings, and spread a charm May-pole in every part of the city. On over the country for the rest of the day; this occasion we are told Robin Hood and as I traversed a part of the fair plains presided as Lord of the May :*#1} TO«With coat of Lincoln green, and mantle too, o 1919d13y. A ..t. no. And horn of ivory mouth, and buckle bright, 1549) 615 1792 DeAnd arrows winged with peacock feathers light, And trusty bow well gathered of the yew;

1999, ubaid
whilst near him, crowned as Lady of the May, maid Marian,{

:

"With eyes of blue of night,

Shining through dusk hair, like the stars night,ov 19

cates And habited in pretty forest plight-
His green-wood beauty sits, young as the dewy

* and there, too, in a subsequent stage of the pageant, were "The archer-men in green, with belt and bow, Feasting on pheasant, river-fowl, and swan, With Robin at their head, and Marian,!~~ Meng sub 19dt er eedt ing the May-pole and the characters fi the May-games, and therefore little will be adduced at present as to the origin of pastimes, which royalty itself delighted in, and corporations patronized. For example of these honours to the festal day, an honest gatherer of older chronicles shall relate in his own words, so much as he acquaints us with 5 szoltod

"I value every custom that tends to infuse spoetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten, and soften the rudeness of rustic manners, without destroying their simplicity. Indeed it is to the decline of this happy simplicity that the decline of this custom may be traced; and the rural dance on the green, and the homely May-day pageant, have gradually disappeared, in proportion as the peasantry have become expensive and artis ficial in their pleasures, and too knowing for simple enjoyment. Some attempts, indeed, have been made of late years, by men of both taste and learning, to rally back the popular feeling to these standards of primitive simplicity; but the time has gone by, the feeling has become chill ed by habits of gain and traffic; the country apes the manners and amusements of the town, and little is heard of May-day at present, except from the la mentations of authors, who sigh after it from among the brick walls of the city."

There will be opportunity in the course of this work to dilate somewhat concern

"In the moneth of May, namely on May day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweet meddowes and green woods, there to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmonie of birds, praising God in their kinde. And for example hereof, Edward Hall hath noted, that king Henry the eighth, as in the third of his reigne, and divers other yeeres, so namely in the seventh of his reigne, on May day in the morning, with queene Katharine his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a Maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooters-hill where as company of tall yeomen, clothed the way, they e greene, with greene hoods, and with

:

they passed byooters-hillspyed a

in

"Mighty Flora, goddesse of fresh flowers, which clothed hath the soyle in lusty green, Made buds to spring, with her sweet showers, by influence of the sunne shine,

To doe pleasance of intent full cleane,

unto the states which now sit here,

Hath Ver downe seat her own daughter deare,

"Making the vertue, that dured in the root, Called the vertue, the vertue vegetable,

for to transcend, most wholesome and most soote, Into the top, this season so agreeable: the bawmy liquor is so commendable,

That it rejoyceth with his fresh moisture, man, beast, and fowle, and every creature," &c.