Mark! how we meet thee While all the goodly things that be Thou merry month of May ! Flocks on the mountains, And birds upon the spray, Tree, turf, and fountains And love, the life of living things, Reginald Heber: 1783-1826. Heber made his first mark in poetry as the author of Palestine, perhaps the finest of Oxford prize-poems (1803). He was presented to the living of Hodnet in 1810, and was made Bishop of Calcutta in 1823. MAY. OH, the merry May has pleasant hours, As if they floated like the leaves The trees are full of crimson buds, And the waters flow to music, The verdure of the meadow-land 1 roundelay-in this case, a round: a kind of part-song so constructed as to produce harmony when all its strains are sung together. The lilac has a load of balm1 And the larch stands green and beautiful There's perfume upon every wind- Dews for the moisture-loving flowers- The sick come forth for the healing South,2 And life is a tale of poetry, That is told by golden hours. It must be a true philosophy,3 For the pulse is stirr'd as with voices heard And while lonely we stray through the fields away, Nathaniel Parker Willis: 1806-1867. (See page 45.) CONTEMPLATION IN SPRING. Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours 4 1 balm-perfume. 2 South-south wind. 3 philosophy-theory. 4 Hours-Horæ, among the ancients the goddesses of the seasons. They had the power of opening the gates of Olympus, where reigned perpetual spring. Venus-Goddess of love: sometimes attended by the Hora. 6 attic warbler-nightingale. The untaught harmony of Spring : Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch Beside some water's rushy brink Still is the toiling hand of care; The insect youth are on the wing, To Contemplation's sober eye Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest : Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. 1 zephyr-among the ancients, one of the winds, the sweetness of whose breath produced flowers and fruit. 2 canopy-a tent-like covering. Methinks I hear in accents low Poor moralist! and what art thou? Thy joys no glittering female meets, Thomas Gray: 1716-1771. (See page 57.) SCENE BETWEEN MAY AND JUNE. IN lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, A most enchanting wizard did abide, Than whom a fiend more fell1 is nowhere found. Half prankt with spring, with summer half embrown'd 9 9 sheen-bright. 10 bicker'd quivered rippling. Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood, Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move. As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood: 6 And up the hills, on either side, a wood Of blackening pines, aye, waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood; And where this valley winded out, below, A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, [flow. The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard to Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, James Thomson: 1700-1748. Thomson was born at Ednam near Kelso, and educated at Edinburgh College. In 1720 he went to London to seek his fortune, and became tutor to the son of Lord Binning. He acquired literary reputation by the success of his poem on The Seasons, published 1726-1728. His next important work is The Castle of Indolence, from which the above is taken: it was written in imitation of the manner of Spenser. 1 philomel-the nightingale. 2 stock-doves plain-wood-pigeons would complain, their cooing being a plaintive or melancholy sound. 3 coil-noise or bustle. sable-dark. 7 main-sea. 4 y-blent-blended. 6 Idless-idleness. 8 eke-also. |