May 15.
1826. Whit Monday.
This second season of annual holidays in England, with the humours of Greenwich fair, and the sports in the park, is described in vol. i. p. 687, &c.
It is a universal festival in the humble ranks of life throughout the kingdom.
Hark, how merrily, from distant tower,
Ring round the village bells; now on the gale
They rise with gradual swell, distinct and loud,
Anon they die upon the pensive ear,
Melting in faintest music. They bespeak
A day of jubilee, and oft they bear,
Commixt along the unfrequented shore,
The sound of village dance and tabor loud,
Startling the musing ear of solitude.
Such is the jocund wake of Whitsuntide,
When happy superstition, gabbling eld,
Holds her unhurtful gambols. All the day
The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance
On the smooth shaven green, and then at eve
Commence the harmless rites and auguries;
And many a tale of ancient days goes round.
They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells
Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,
Or draw the fixed stars from their eminence,
And still the midnight tempest; then, anon,
Tell of uncharnelled spectres, seen to glide
Along the lone wood’s unfrequented path,
Startling the nighted traveller; while the sound
Of undistinguished murmurs, heard to come
From the dark centre of the deepening glen,
Struck on his frozen ear.
H. K. White.
Drop Handkerchief.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—The approaching Whitsuntide brings to my remembrance a custom which I believe to be now quite obsolete.