End of May
This month may close with a delightful sonnet, from one of the best books put forth in recent years for daily use and amusement.
Summer.
Now have young April and the blue eyed May
Vanished awhile, and lo! the glorious June
(While nature ripens in his burning noon,)
Comes like a young inheritor; and gay,
Altho’ his parent months have passed away;
But his green crown shall wither, and the tune
That ushered in his birth be silent soon,
And in the strength of youth shall he decay.
What matters this—so long as in the past
And in the days to come we live, and feel
The present nothing worth, until it steal
Away and, like a disappointment, die?
For Joy, dim child of Hope and Memory,
Flies ever on before or follows fast.
Literary Pocket Book
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 57·97.
[192] Milner’s Hist. of Winchester.