—But be this as it may, we are still able to feel what nature is, though we have in a great measure ceased to know it; though we have chosen to neglect her ordinances, and absent ourselves from her presence, we still retain some instinctive reminiscences of her beauty and her power; and every now and then the sordid walls of those mud hovels which we have built for ourselves, and choose to dwell in, fall down before the magic touch of our involuntary fancies, and give us glimpses into ‘that imperial palace whence we came,’ and make us yearn to return thither, though it be but in thought.
‘Then sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!’”[144]
[144] Mirror of the Months.
May 1.
St. Philip and St. James.[145]
May Day.
As we had some agreeable intimacies to-day last year, we will seek our country friends in other rural parts, this “May morning,” and see “how they do.”
To illustrate the custom of going “a Maying,” described in volume i., a song still used on that occasion is subjoined:—