This slender rod, the hawthorn bears,
And when its bloom is o’er,
Its ruby berries then it wears,
The songster’s winter store.
Then, though it charm the sight and smell,
In spring’s delicious hours,
The feather’d choir its praise shall tell,
’Gainst winter round us lowers.
O then, my love, from me receive,
This beauteous hawthorn spray,
A garland for thy head I’ll weave,
Be thou my queen of May.
Love and fragrant as these flowers,
Live pure as thou wert born,
And ne’er may sin’s destructive powers,
Assail thee with its thorn.
One more ditty, a favourite in many parts of England, is homely, but there is a prettiness in its description that may reconcile it to the admirers of a “country life:”—
The May Day Herd.
Now at length ’tis May-day morn,
And the herdsman blows his horn;
Green with grass the common now,
Herbage bears for many a cow.
Too long in the straw yard fed,
Have the cattle hung their head,
And the milk did well nigh fail,
The milk-maid in her ashen pail.
Well the men have done their job,
Every horn has got its knob;
Nor shall they each other gore,
Not a bag, or hide, be tore.