Another poet, and therefore no opponent 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-pipe’s 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 hath spent
His paines to fill their rural merriment.
Browne’s Pastorals.
A poet, who has not versified, (Mr. Washington Irving,) says, “I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the river 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 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 chilled 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.”