So also the ignorant believe that any person fasting on Midsummer eve, and sitting in the church porch, will, at midnight, see the spirits of the persons of that parish who will die that year, come and knock at the church door, in the order and succession in which they will die.
In the “Cottage Girl,” before referred to, the gathering the rose on Midsummer eve and wearing it, is noticed as one of the modes by which a lass seeks to divine the sincerity of her suitor’s vows:—
The moss-rose that, at fall of dew,
(Ere Eve its duskier curtain drew,)
Was freshly gather’d from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover’s care,
She bids it, for her shepherd’s sake,
Await the new-year’s frolic wake—
When, faded, in its alter’d hue
She reads—the rustic is untrue!
But, if it leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick’ning hopes no longer faint.
The rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn;
And lo! her lips with kisses prest,
He plucks it from her panting breast.
In “Time’s Telescope,” there is cited the following literal version of a beautiful ballad which has been sung for many centuries by the maidens, on the banks of the Guadalquivir in Spain, when they go forth to gather flowers on the morning of the festival of St John the baptist:—
Spanish Ballad.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, ’tis the day of good St. John,
It is the Baptist’s morning that breaks the hills upon;
And let us all go forth together, while the blessed day is new,
To dress with flowers the snow-white wether, ere the sun has dried the dew.
Come forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, the hedgerows all are green,
And the little birds are singing the opening leaves between;
And let us all go forth together, to gather trefoil by the stream,
Ere the face of Guadalquivir glows beneath the strengthening beam.
Come, forth, come forth, &c.
Come forth, come forth, my maidens, and slumber not away
The blessed, blessed morning of John the Baptist’s day;
There’s trefoil on the meadow, and lilies on the lee,
And hawthorn blossoms on the bush, which you must pluck with me.
Come forth, come forth, &c.