Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales: and far and near
In wood and thicket over the wide grove
They answer and provoke each other's songs-
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all-
Stirring the air with such a harınony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,

Whose dewy leafits are but half disclos'd,

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,

Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full
Glist'ning, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.-

- -Oft, a moment's space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud.
Hath heard a pause of silence: till the moon
Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky
With one sensation, and those wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden gale had swept
An hundred airy harps! And I have watch'd
Many a nightingale perch'd giddily

On blos'my twig, still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song,
Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

May 1.

St. Philip, and St. James the less. St.
Asaph, Bp. of Llan-Elway, A. D. 590.
St. Marcon, or Marculfus, A. D. 558. St.
Sigismund, king of Burgundy, 6th Cent

St. Philip and St. James.
Philip is supposed to have been the
first of Christ's apostles, and to have died
at Hierapolis, in Phrygia. James, also
surnamed the Just, whose name is borne
by the epistle in the New Testament, and
who was in great repute among the Jews,
was martyred in a tumult in the temple,
about the year 62. St. Philip and St.
James are in the church of England

Calendar.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Tulip. Tulipa Gesneri.
Dedicated to St. Philip.
Red Campion. Lychnis dioica rubra.
Red Bachelor's Buttons. Lychnis dioica
plena.

Dedicated to St. James.

Mr. Audley, from Lardner.

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

VOL. I.

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 sce

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 then 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.

Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himselfe, or else stands still

Till 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,
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;

Many a kisse, both odde and even;
Many a glance, too, has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament;

Many a jest told of the keye's betraying

This night, and locks pickt; yet w'are not a Maying.

Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime
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;
And 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.

A gatherer of notices respecting our pastimes says, "The after-part of Mayday is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall Poll, which is called a May Poll; which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offer'd to it, in the whole circle of the year." One who was 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 greate veneration, as thus. They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie 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, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with two or three hun

Herrick.

dred men, women, ana children follow-
yng it, with greate devotion. And thus
beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and
flagges streamyng on the toppe, they
strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene
boughes about it, sett up Sommer haules,
Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And
then fall they to banquet and feast, to
leape and daunce aboute it, as the Hea-
then people did at the dedication of their
Idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne,
or rather the thyng itself."*

The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup;
I'll drink to the garlands around it,
But first unto those

Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.
Herrick.

Another poet, and therefore no op. ponent to homely mirth on this festal day, so describes part of its merriment as to make a beautiful picture:

I have seen the Lady of the May
Set in an arbour (on a holy-day)
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swaines
Dance with the maidens to the bag-pipes straines,
When envious night commands them to be gone,
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,

And, 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 bath spent
His paines to fill their rural merriment.

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

Browne's Pastorals

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

Stubbes

Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the river from the quaint little city or 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 volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart. The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream completed the illusion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day. The mere sight of this May-pole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day; and as I traversed a part of the fair plains

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 imagine what a gay scene it must have been in jolly old London, when the doors were decorated with flowering branches, when every hat was decked with hawthorn; and Robin Hood, friar Tuck, Maid Marian, the morris-dancers, and all the other fantastic masks and revellers were performing their antics about the May-pole in every part of the city. On this occasion we are told Robin Hood presided as Lord of the May-"With coat of Lincoln green, and mantle too, And horn of ivory mouth, and buckle bright, And arrows winged with peacock feathers light, And trusty bow well gathered of the yew;

"whilst near him, crowned as Lady of the May, maid Marian,
"With eyes of blue,

Shining through dusk hair, like the stars of night,
And habited in pretty forest plight—

His green-wood beauty sits, young as the dew:

"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.

"I value every custom that tends to infuse poetical 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 artificial 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 lamentations 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

ing the May-pole and the characters r. 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:

"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 they passed by the way, they espyed a company of tall yeomen, clothed all in greene, with greene hoods, and with