Michaelmas-day is one of the “four usual quarter-days, or days for payment of rent in the year.”
A Michaelmas Notice to quit.
To ALL gad-flies and gnats, famed for even-tide hum,
To the blue-bottles, too, with their gossamer drum;
To all long-legs and moths, thoughtless rogues still at ease,
Old Winter sends greeting—health, friendship, and these.
Whereas, on complaint lodged before me this day,
That for months back, to wit, from the first day of May,
Various insects, pretenders to beauty and birth,
Have, on venturesome wing, lately traversed the earth,
And, mistaking fair Clara’s chaste lips for a rose,
Stung the beauty in public—and frightened her beaux.
And, whereas, on the last sultry evening in June,
The said Clara was harmlessly humming a tune;
A blue-bottle, sprung from some dunghill, no doubt,
Buzzed about her so long—he at last put her out.
And whereas sundry haunches and high-seasoned pies,
And a thousand sweet necks have been o’errun with flies;
In his wisdom, Old Winter thinks nothing more fit
Than to publish this friendly ‘memento to quit.’
At your peril, ye long-legs, this notice despise!
Hasten hence, ye vile gad-flies! a word to the wise!
Hornets, horse-stingers, wasps, fly so hostile a land,
Or your death-warrant’s signed by Old Winter’s chill hand.[332]
FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Michaelmas Daisy. Aster Tradescanti.
Dedicated to St. Michael and all Angels.