With merry lasses daunc’d the rod about.
Then Friendship to their banquets bid the guests
And poor men far’d the better for their feasts.
* * * * *
But since the Summer poles were overthrown,
And all good sports and merriments decayed,
How times and men are chang’d so well is knowne,
It were but labour lost if more were said.
In England the once universal joy-making on the first of May has dwindled into a mere eleemosynary device, and every year takes away something even from this poor survival. We are only reminded of the day in London by here and there a peripatetic Jack-in-the-Green with his retinue of begging clowns, by the gay ribbons on a few draught horses, and by the newspaper reports of the election of Mr. Ruskin’s May-queen at Whitelands College. But in many old-world towns and villages throughout the country the children still carry round wands, with bunches of flowers tied to them, or garlands, consisting of a little bower fashioned out of two crossed hoops, hidden in flowers, with a doll seated in the centre. The obvious intention of this pretty custom is the collection of coppers, which no one will grudge. It is, so to say, a religious ceremony, whereof only the collection has survived, as the following old rhyme sufficiently illustrates:—
Gentlemen and ladies!