CHAPTER V.
MAY.
"Colin met Sylvia on the green
Once on the charming first of May,
And shepherds ne'er tell false, I ween,
Yet 'twas by chance, the shepherds say."Colin he bow'd and blush'd, then said,
'Will you, sweet maid, this first of May,
Begin the dance by Colin led,
To make this quite his holiday?'"Sylvia replied, 'I ne'er from home
Yet ventur'd, till this first of May;
It is not fit for maids to roam,
And make a shepherd's holiday.'"'It is most fit,' replied the youth,
'That Sylvia should this first of May
By me be taught that love and truth
Can make of life a holiday.'"—Lady Craven.
May Day Festivities—May-pole—Morris-dancers—The Book of Sports—Bowling—Beating the Bounds—George Herbert's description of a Country Parson.
HE spring has dawned with all its brightness and beauty; the nightingale's song is heard, and all nature seems to rejoice in the sweet spring-time. Our forefathers delighted, too, in the advent of the bright month of May, which the old poets used to compare to a maiden clothed in sunshine dancing to the music of birds and brooks; and May Day was the great rural festival of the year.
Long before the break of day, men and women, old and young, of all classes, used to assemble and hurry away to the woods and groves to gather the blooming hawthorn and spring flowers, and laden with their spoils returned when the sun rose, with merry shouts and horn-blowings, and adorned every door and window in the village. The poet Herrick sings of this pleasant beginning to the day's festivities. Addressing a maiden named Corinna, he says—
"Come, my Corinna, come, and coming mark
How each field turns a street, and each street a park,
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove."
The men blew cow-horns to usher in the spring, and the maids carried garlands to hang them in the churches; while at Oxford the choristers of Magdalen College assemble at the top of the tower at early dawn, and sing hymns of thankfulness because spring has come again. This pleasing custom is still observed every year on the first of May.