Chapter Twenty Four.
May-Day in the Arctic Regions.
May-day! May-day in England! Surely, even to the minds of the youngest among us, these words bring some pleasant recollections.
“Ah! but,” I think I hear you complain, “the May-days are not now what they were in the good old times; not the May-days we read of in books; not the May-days of merrie England. Where are the may-poles, with their circles of rosy-cheeked children dancing gleesomely around them? Where are the revels? Where are the games? Where is the little maiden persistent, who plagued her mother so lest she should forget to wake and call her early—
“‘Because I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother,
I’m to be Queen o’ the May?’
“And echo answers, ‘Where?’”
These things, maiden included, have passed away; they have fled like the fairies before the shriek of engine and rattle of railway wheels.
But May-day in England! Why, there is some pleasure and some joy left in it even yet. Summer comes with it, or promises it will soon be on the wing. Already in the meadows the cattle wade knee-deep in dewy grass, and cull sweet cowslips and daisies. A balmier air breathes over the land; the rising sun is rosy with hope; the lark springs from his nest among the tender corn, and mounts higher to sing than he has ever done before; flowers are blooming on every brae; the mossy banks are redolent of wild thyme; roses begin to peep coyly out in the hedgerows, and butterflies spread their wings, as a sailor spreads a sail, and go fluttering away through the gladsome sunshine. And yonder—why, yonder is a little maiden, and a very pretty one, too, though she isn’t going to be Queen o’ the May. No, but she is tripping along towards the glade, where the pink-blossomed hawthorn grows, and the yellow scented furze. She is going to—
Bathe her sweet face in May-morn dew,
To make her look lovely all the year through.
She glances shyly around her, hoping that no one sees her. You and I, dear reader, are far too manly to stand and stare so.