THE 'merry month of May" has made

the subject of many a poet's song. Our greatest writers have dignified it with their most beautiful descriptions, and the remembrance of what they have written always makes us look forward to this month with anticipations of pleasure and delight. It is not wonderful that May should have been selected particularly for description and praised by the poets; for there is no month in the year which inspires feelings so poetical and harmonious. Summer is rich and beautiful, with its trees and flowers, its deep blue skies, and sweetly-singing birds, and its gorgeous sunlight giving a still richer hue to all its beauty. Autumn too is beautiful, the bright colours of summer harmonized and deepened, the rich forest tinged with brown, the ripe fruit hanging in delicious clusters from the trees! and when Autumn approaches its close, how mournfully suggestive is the sight of the withered leaves falling from the trees, and forming a rich carpet on the ground below. Winter is very grand: the height of the hills, the roofs of the houses, the branches of the trees, the whole surface of the ground, buried in a sheet of pure white snow; the rivers and ponds frozen into a polished mirror of ice; everything cheerful, bright and clear.

There is poetry, therefore, in all the seasons, and in all the months; and each has its own peculiar suggestiveness. But May perhaps more than all the rest offers subjects for the highest strains of poetry. It would be useless to attempt a description of it in prose in an essay which concerns especially the poetry of the month, so I shall not try to speak of it in my own language, but begin by quoting Milton's exquisite "Ode to May:"

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail! bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire.
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.

Here is another pretty ode on the ad-
vent of May, by Bullock :-
Hither she comes, the laughing May,
Dressed in her bridals rich and gay;
Her waist is girt with a zone of flowers,
The free glad gifts of the glowing hours;
And her tresses float on the morning ray,
With the sheen of the cataract's sparkling

spray.

Mark ye the smile of her sun-lit eye,
And say is there aught with that smile can
vie ?

Hither she comes, the flowerets spring,
In the joy of her warm breath blossoming.
The violet peeps on the garish day,
And the cowslip blooms on the sunny lea,
And the wall-flower smiles on the ruin gray.
And the blossom is bright on the hawthorn
tree,

And the lark soars high on his speckled wing,

With a carol of joy for a welcoming.
She brushes the dew from the laden spray,
She climbeth the hills where the young

lambs play;

At noon she seeketh the cooling shade,
And the soft repose of the forest glade;
Where the glare of the clay is hushed and
dim,

And flingeth her gifts on the fountain's

brim,

And laveth her limbs in the lucid tide, As it laughs aloud in its joyous pride.

And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds and all the swallows;

Hark where the blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field, and scatters to the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge.

That's the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never would recapture

The first fine careless rapture.

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew.

Wordsworth, pre-eminently the poet of nature in all her most beautiful aspects, has some fine passages about this month. I will first give his description of the advent of May, and then his description of the

month itself :

Now while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound,
As to the tabor's sound,

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.

No more shall grief of mine the season

wrong;

I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,

The winds come to me from the fields of
sleep.
All the earth is gay,-
Land and sea,

And with the heart of May
Doth every beast keep holiday.
Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you
in your
jubilee.

My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss I feel, I feel it all.
Oh evil day if I were sullen,
While the earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May morning;
And the children were pulling,

On every side,

In a thousand valleys, far and wide,
Fresh flowers, while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on its mother's arm.

Miss Isa Craig has written a pretty description of May-day :—

It is the morn of May,
The flowery holiday

Of Shakspeare's England, with its golden hours,

As bright as ever passed,

And threading labyrinths of leaves and In glittering waters glassed,

flowers.

The trees, fresh-clad and cool,
Of murmured bliss are full;

A deep content is poured on nature's needs.

And joy is in the flow

Of each pulsation low,

Which sends the lakelet rippling to its reeds.

Fair princess, woodland queen,
The slender birch is seen,

With silken tresses to the sunshine spread,
With gleams like dazzling smiles,
And gay coquettish wiles,

The light laburnum shakes her golden head.
Like bride on bridal morn,

There stands the snowy thorn,

White, fragrant, flowery; and the lilac there From every peachy plume

Shakes out a rich perfume,

In waves of incense on the happy air.

Apropos of May-day, I met with some pretty Scotch lines by Fergusson about certain superstitious rites which the fairies are said to perform on that day. I will only extract one verse, as these lines do not give any description of the month :--On May-day, in a fairy ring, We've seen them roun' St. Anthon's spring, Frae grass the cauler dew-drops wring To weet their een,

And water clear as crystal spring-
To synd them clean.

May is renowned for flowers. Cowper says of some flowers in winter :

These pinks are as fresh and as gay,

As the fairest and sweetest that blow
On the beautiful bosom of May.

The sun is bright, the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The blue-bird prophesying spring.
So blue yon winding river flows,
It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where waiting till the west-wind blows,
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.
All things are new; the buds, the leaves
That gild the elm tree's nodding crest
And even the nest beneath the eaves:
There are no birds in last year's nest!
All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.

Leigh Hunt's description of May at Ravenna is so true of this month everywhere, that I shall be pardoned for insert

The sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May, Round old Ravenna's clear-shown towers and bay.

A morn the loveliest which the earth has seen,

Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green.

For a warm eve and gentle rains at night Have left a sparkling welcome for the light; And there's a crystal clearness all about; The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out.

A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze, The smoke goes dancing from the cottage

trees;

And when you listen you may hear a coil Of bubbling springs about the grassy soil.

sea,

Breathes like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly.

'Tis nature full of spirits, waked and springing;

The birds to the delicious time are singing, Darting with freaks and snatches up and down,

Where the light woods go seaward from the town.

While happy faces, striking through the green

Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen.

As if 'twere easier to be cross than kind! Thou had'st not e'en the spirit of a flirt, To set off thy dim beauty! thou did'st

never

Smile on thy lovers, that around thee clung. And yet, cold and unloving as thou wert, The thought is sad that thou art gone for

ever.

But I cannot conclude these selections

Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light

Come gleaming up, true to the wished-for day, And chase the whistling swirl and brine into the bay.

Speaking of the sea in May, I have found a beautiful little piece, by Alexander Smith, on this subject:

The lark is singing in the blinding sky, Hedges are white with May-the bride

groom sea

Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride;
And in the fulness of his marriage joy
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a space to see how fair she looks,
Then, proud, runs up to kiss her. All is
fair,

All glad from grass to sun.

And yet May is not always fair. The poet cannot look for ever at the brightness and beauty, and ignore the occasional darkness and disappointment. Robert Selma, some of whose verses I have before quoted, has written an "Ode to an Unpropitious May:"

'Tis well that thou art dead and passed

away

All save thy worthless memory, for now
I will endeavour to forget that thou
Wert so unkind, so uncongenial, May!
All hearts awaited thee with dance and
song,

To make thee happy as thy days were long.

the month is so bright and joyful. I will add, in conclusion, Mr. Tennyson's beautiful description of May, with which he finishes the first part of his "May Queen :'

The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,

And by the meadow - trenches blow the faint-sweet cuckoo-flowers;

And the wild marsh-marigold shines like

fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow grass,

And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass:

There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh, and green, and still,

And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,

And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play,

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

So you must wake and call me early call, me early, mother dear, To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New Year:

To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest, merriest day,

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.