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Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest;-
May peace come never to his nest,
Who shall reprove thee.

Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast;
Sweet silent creature;

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature.

Mr. Wordsworth calls the daisy "an unassuming common-place of Nature," which it is; and he praises it very becomingly for discharging it's duties so chearfully, in that universal character. But we cannot agree with him in thinking that it has a "homely face." Not that we should care, if it really had; for homeliness does not make ugliness; but we appeal to every body, whether it is proper to say this of la belle Marguerite. In the first place, it's shape is very pretty and slender, but not too much so? Then it has a boss of gold, set round and irradiated with silver points. It's yellow and fair white are in so high a taste of contrast, that Spenser has chosen the same colours for a picture of Leda reposing :

Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man!
That her in daffodillies sleeping laid,

From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade.

It is for the same reason, that the daisy, being chiefly white, makes such a beautiful shew in company with the butter cup. But this is not all; for look at the back, and you find it's fair petals blushing with a most delightful red. And how compactly and delicately is the neck set in green! Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable sœur du roi Kingcup, we would tilt for thee with a hundred pens, against the stoutest poet that did not find perfection in thy cheek.

But here somebody may remind us of the spring showers, and what drawbacks they are upon going into the fields.-Not at all so, when the spring is really confirmed, and the showers but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn our imaginations to the bright side of spring, and we shall forget the showers. You see they have been forgotten just this moment. Besides, we are not likely to stray too far into the fields; and if we should, are there not hats, bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, and good wills? We may make these things zests, if we please, instead of drawbacks. There is a pleasant, off-hand, picturesque little poem, full of sprightly simplicity, written by Franco Sacchetti, the earliest follower of Boccaccio; which will shew us, that the Italians are not prevented from gathering flowers by the fear of rain, nor even of snakes. Eccolo.*

With respect to giving the originals of what we translate, we are guided by this principle:-if they are easily referred to, we shall always content ourselves with short extracts, unless hurried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, or for some other special reason; if they are not so readily to be found, it will add a value

GATHERING FLOWERS.

Passando con pensier per un boschetto,
Donne per quello givan fior cogliendo,
Con diletto, co' quel, co' quel dicendo,
Eccolo, eccol; che? è fiordaliso.
Va là per le viole;

Più colà per le rose, cole, cole
Vaghe amorose.

O me, che 'l prun mi punge,
Quell' altra, me v' aggiunge.
U', u, o, ch'è quel che salta?
Un grillo, un grillo.
Venite qua, correte,
Ramponzoli cogliete:
E' non son' essi.

Sì, son: colei o colei

Vien qua, vien qua per funghi, un micolino,
Più colà, piu colà, per sermollino.

Noi starem troppo, che 'l tempo si turba;
Ve' che balena e tuona,

E m' indovino che vespero suona.
Paurosa! non è egli ancor nona;

E vedi ed odi l' usignuol che canta,
Piu bel ve', piu bel ve'.

Io sento e non so che;
E dov'è, e dov'è?

In quel cespuglio.

Ognuna qui picchia, tocca, e ritocca:
Mentre lo busso cresce,

Una gran serpe n' esce.

O me trista! o me lassa! o me! o me!
Gridan fuggendo di paura piene,
Ed ecco che una folta pioggia viene.
Timidetta quell' una e l'altra urtando,
Stridendo, la divanza, via fuggendo,
E gridando, qual sdrucciola, qual cade.
Per caso l'una appone lo ginocchio
Là ve seggea lo frettoloso piede,
E la mano e le veste:

Quella di fango lorda ne diviene,
Quella di piu calpeste:

to our little work to lay them before the reader. A volume of the Indicator will thus contain some of the best morsels of literature. In the Parnaso Italiano, it is doubted whether the present poem is to be assigned to Franco Sacchetti, or to Ugolin Ubaldini, who according to the editor is the same as the Ubaldin de la Pila mentioned among the gluttons in the 24th Book of Dante's Purgatory. If so, he was not so likely to forget himself among the fields, as Sacchetti; but whether he be the same person or not, the poem answers so well to the latter's character, that it was most probably his production. He is another instance, to be added to some of the most illustrious names, of the triumph of a genial imagination, and a rich indifference to riches, over a life of business, politics, and even honours. Franco Sacchetti, a Florentine, says Mr. Dunlop, (History of Fiction, Vol. 2. p. 305.) " was born in 1335, and died about the year 1410. He was a poet in his youth, and travelled to Sclavonia and other countries, to attend to some mercantile concerns. As he advanced in years, he was raised to a distinguished rank in the Magistracy of Florence; he became podestà of Faenza and other places, and at length governor of a Florentine province in the Romagna. Notwithstanding his honours he lived and died poor, but is said to have been a good-humoured facetious man. He left an immense collection of sonnets and canzone, some of which have been lost, and others are still in M.S."-We should be exceedingly gratified by the sight of any of his poems that may happen to be in print.

Cio ch' an colto ir si lassa,

Ne pui s' apprezza, e per bosco si spande.
De' fiori a terra vanno le ghirlande,
Nè si sdimette pure unquanto il corso.
In cotal fuga a repetute note
Tiensi beata, chi più correr puote.

Si fiso stetti il dì ch' io le mirai,
Ch' io non m' avvidi, e tutto mi bagnai.

Walking and musing in a wood, I saw

Some ladies gathering flowers, now this, now t'other,
And crying in delight to one another,

"Look here, look here: what's this? a fleur-de-lis.
Oh-get some violets there:

No, no, some roses farther onward there:

How beautiful they are!

O me! these thorns do prick so-only see:

Not that; the other reach it me.

Hallo, hallo! What is it leaping so?

A grasshopper, a grasshopper.

Come here, come here now, quickly,

The rampions grow so thickly:

No; they're not rampions.

Yes, they are:-Anna, Beatrice, or Lisa,

Come here, come here for mushrooms just a bit

There, there's the betony-you're treading it.

We shall be caught, the weather's going to change:
See, see; it lightens-hush-and there's the thunder.
Was that the bell for vespers too, I wonder?
Why, you faint-hearted thing, it isn't noon:

It was the nightingale-I know his tune-
There's something stirring there!

Where, where ?

There, in the bushes."

Here every lady pokes, and peeps, and pushes;
When suddenly, in middle of the rout,

A great large snake comes out.

"O lord! O lord! Good heavens! O me! O me!"
And off they go, scampering with all their power,
While from above, down comes a pelting shower.

Frightened, and scrambling, jolting one another,
They shriek, they run, they slide: the foot of one
Catches her gown, and where the foot should be
Down goes the knee,

And hands, and clothes, and all; some stumble on,
Brushing the hard earth off, and some the mud.

What they plucked, so glad and heaping,

Now becomes not worth their keeping.

Off it squirrs, leaf, root, and flower;

Yet not the less for that they scream and scower,

In such a passage, happiest she

Who plies her notes most rapidly.

So fixed I stood, gazing at that fair set,

That I forgot the shower, and dripped with wet.

Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard Printed by Joseph Appleyard, No, 19, Catherine-street, Strand,-Price 2d.

THE INDICATOR.

There he arriving round about doth flie,
And takes survey with busie curious eye:
Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.

SPENSER.

No. XXIX.-WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26th, 1820.

MAY-DAY.

On Monday next is May-Morning ;-a word, which used to awaken in the minds of our ancestors all the ideas of youth, and verdure, and blossoming, and love, and hilarity; in short, the union of the two best things in the world, the love of nature, and the love of each other. It was the day, on which the arrival of the year at maturity was kept, like that of a blooming heiress. They caught her eye as she was coming, and sent up hundreds of songs of joy.

Now the bright Morning-Star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire:
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill, and dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

These songs were stopped by Milton's own friends the Puritans, whom in his old age he again differed with, most likely on these very points among others. But till then, they appear to have been as old, all over Europe, as the existence of society. The Druids are said to have had festivals in honour of May. Our Teutonic ancestors had undoubtedly; and in the countries which had constituted the Western Roman Empire, Flora still saw thanks paid for her flowers, though her worship had gone away*.

*The great May holiday observed over the West of Europe was known for cen turies, up to a late period, under the name of the Beltein or Beltane. Such a number of etymologies, all perplexingly probable, have been found for this word, that we have been surprised to miss among them that of Bel-temps, the Fine Time or Season. Thus Printemps, the First Time or Prime Season, is the Spring.

The homage, which was paid to the Month of Love and Flowers, may be divided into two sorts, the general and the individual. The first consisted in going with others to gather May, and in joining in sports and games afterwards. On the first of the month, "the juvenile part of both sexes," says Bourne, in his Popular Antiquities, "were wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this was done, they returned with their booty about the rising of the sun, and made their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing round a May-pole, which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stood there, as it were, consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers without the least violation offered to it, in the whole circle of the year.". Spenser, in his Shepheard's Calendar, has detailed the circumstances, in a style like a rustic dance.

Young folke now flocken in-every where

To gather May-buskets*—and smelling brere;
And home they hasten-the postes to dight,
And all the kirk-pillours-eare day-light,
With hawthorne buds-and sweet eglantine,
And girlonds of roses-and soppes in wine.

*

*

*

*

*

Sicker this morowe, no longer agoe,

I saw a shole of shepherds outgoe

*

With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere;
Before them yodet a lustie tabreret,

That to the many a hornpipe played,

Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see these folks make such jovisaunce,

Made my heart after the pipe to daunce.

Thos to the greene wood they speeden hem all,
To fetchen home May with their musicall,
And home they bringen, in a royall throne,
Crowned as king; and his queen attone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fayre flocke of faeries, and a fresh bend
Of lovely nymphs. O that I were there
To helpen the ladies their May-bush beare.

The day was past in sociality and manly sports;-in archery, and running, and pitching the bar,-in dancing, singing, playing music, acting Robin Hood and his company, and making a well-earned feast upon all the country-dainties in season. It closed with an award of

prizes,

As I have seen the Lady of the May,
Set in an arbour (on a holyday)
Built by the Maypole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bag-pipe's strains,
When envious night commands them to be gone,
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,

* Buskets-Boskets-Bushes-from Boschetti, Ital.

Tabrere, a Tabourer, § Tho, Then.

+ Yode, Went.

Altone, At once-With him.

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