The Milkmaids’ Dance.
A pageant quite as gay, of less estate,
With flowers made and solid silver plate—
A lesser garland—on a damask bed,
Was carried on a skilful porter’s head;
It stopp’d at every customer’s street-door,
And all the milkmaids ranged themselves before;
The fiddler’s quick’ning elbow quicker flew,
And then he stamp’d, and then the galliard grew.
Then cows the meadows ranged and fed on grass,
And milk was sometimes water’d—now, alas!
In huge first floors each cow, a prison’d guest,
Eats rancid oil-cake in unnat’ral rest,
Bids from her udder unconcocted flow
A stream a few short hours will turn to—foh!
Milk manufactories usurp the place
Of wholesome dairies, and the milkmaid’s face,
And garlands go no more, and milkmaids cease—
Yet tell me one thing, and I’ll be at peace;
May I, ye milk companions, hope to see
Old “milk mi-eau” once more dilute my tea?
Planting the Village Maypole.
Profitons enfans des beaux jours
Cette verdure passagère
Nous apprend qu’une loy sévère
En doit bientost finir le cours.
In this way the setting up of the Maypole is represented by one of the old French prints of the customs of the seasons, published “à Paris chez I. Mariette,” with the preceding lines subjoined. It is wholly a rustic affair. In an English village such an event would have been celebrated to the simple sounds from a pipe and tabor, or at most a fiddle; but our neighbours of the continent perform the ceremony by beat of drum and sound of trumpet. Their merriments are showy as themselves; ours are of a more sober character, and in the country seem nearer to a state of pastoral simplicity.
My brown Buxoma is the featest maid,
That e’er at wake delightsome gambol play’d,
Clean as young lambkins or the goose’s down,
And like the goldfinch in her Sunday gown.
The witless lamb may sport upon the plain,
The frisking kid delight the gaping swain,
The wanton calf may skip with many a bound,
And my cur, Tray, play deftest feats around;
But neither lamb, nor kid, nor calf, nor Tray
Dance like Buxoma on the first of May.