Volume Iii Part 15 (1/2)
”SISTER, AWAKE!”
Sister, awake! close not your eyes!
The day her light discloses, And the bright morning doth arise Out of her bed of roses.
See the clear sun, the world's bright eye, In at our window peeping: Lo, how he blusheth to espy Us idle wenches sleeping!
Therefore awake! make haste, I say, And let us, without staying, All in our gowns of green so gay Into the Park a-maying!
Unknown
MAY
May! queen of blossoms, And fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours?
Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead?
Or to the lute give heed In the green bowers?
Thou hast no need of us, Or pipe or wire; Thou hast the golden bee Ripened with fire; And many thousand more Songsters, that thee adore, Filling earth's gra.s.sy floor With new desire.
Thou hast thy mighty herds, Tame and free-livers; Doubt not, thy music too In the deep rivers, And the whole plumy flight Warbling the day and night-- Up at the gates of light, See, the lark quivers!
Edward Hovell-Thurlow [1781-1829]
MAY
Come walk with me along this willowed lane, Where, like lost coinage from some miser's store, The golden dandelions more and more Glow, as the warm sun kisses them again!
For this is May! who with a daisy chain Leads on the laughing Hours; for now is o'er Long winter's trance. No longer rise and roar His forest-wrenching blasts. The hopeful swain, Along the furrow, sings behind his team; Loud pipes the redbreast--troubadour of spring, And vocal all the morning copses ring; More blue the skies in lucent lakelets gleam; And the glad earth, caressed by murmuring showers, Wakes like a bride, to deck herself with flowers!
Henry Sylvester Cornwell [1831-1886]
A SPRING LILT
Through the silver mist Of the blossom-spray Trill the orioles: list To their joyous lay!
”What in all the world, in all the world,” they say, Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?”
”June! June! June!”
Low croon The brown bees in the clover.
”Sweet! sweet! sweet!”
Repeat The robins, nested over.
Unknown
SUMMER LONGINGS
Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May,-- Waiting for the pleasant rambles Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles, With the woodbine alternating, Scent the dewy way.