TO MAY

And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget

Thy gifts, thy beauty scorn ;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,

But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odours! music sweet,

Too sweet to pass away!

Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire-a lay

That, when a thousand years are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, sea, thy presence feel-nor less,
If yon ethereal blue

With its soft smile the truth express,

The heavens have felt it too.

The inmost heart of man if glad

Partakes a livelier cheer;

And eyes that cannot but be sad

The Old, by thee revived, have said,

"Another year is ours ;"

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And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.

Who tripping lisps a merry song

Amid his playful peers?

The tender Infant who was long
A prisoner of fond fears;

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But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,

His Mother leaves him free to taste
Earth's sweetness in thy breath.

Thy help is with the weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;

No cliff so bare but on its steeps

Thy favours may be found; But most on some peculiar nook

That our own hands have drest,

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Thou and thy train are proud to look,

And seem to love it best.

And yet how pleased we wander forth
When May is whispering, "Come!

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"Choose from the bowers of virgin earth "The happiest for your home;

"Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread

"From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves,

"Drops on the mouldering turret's head, "And on your turf-clad graves!"

Such greeting heard, away with sighs
For lilies that must fade,

Or "the rathe primrose as it dies
Forsaken" in the shade!

Vernal fruitions and desires

Are linked in endless chase;

While, as one kindly growth retires,

Another takes its place.

And what if thou, sweet May, hast known

Mishap by worm and blight;

If expectations newly blown

Have perished in thy sight;

* Compare Lycidas, l. 142.—ED.

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бо

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TO MAY

If loves and joys, while up they sprung,

Were caught as in a snare;

Such is the lot of all the young,

However bright and fair.

Lo! Streams that April could not check

Are patient of thy rule;

Gurgling in foamy water-break,

Loitering in glassy pool:

By thee, thee only, could be sent
Such gentle mists as glide,
Curling with unconfirmed intent,
On that green mountain's side.

How delicate the leafy veil

Through which yon house of God Gleams 'mid the peace of this deep dale * By few but shepherds trod !

And lowly huts, near beaten ways,

No sooner stand attired

In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise
Peep forth, and are admired.

Season of fancy and of hope,

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Keep, lovely May, as if by touch

Permit not for one hour,

A blossom from thy crown to drop,

Nor add to it a flower!

Of self-restraining art,

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This modest charm of not too much,

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Part seen, imagined part!

*Newlands. See the Fenwick note, p. 146.-ED.

"ONCE I COULD HAIL (HOWE'ER SERENE THE SKY)"

Composed 1826.-Published 1827

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, Percy's Reliques.-W.W.

["No faculty yet given me to espy

The dusky Shape within her arms imbound."

Afterwards, when I could not avoid seeing it, I wondered at this, and the more so because, like most children, I had been in the habit of watching the moon through all her changes, and had often continued to gaze at it when at the full till half blinded.-I. F.]

From 1827 to 1842, one of the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Poems.” In 1845 transferred to the "Miscellaneous Poems."-ED.

ONCE I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)

The Moon re-entering her monthly round,
No faculty yet given me to espy

The dusky Shape within her arms imbound,
That thin memento of effulgence lost

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Which some have named her Predecessor's ghost.

Young, like the Crescent that above me shone,
Nought I perceived within it dull or dim;

All that appeared was suitable to One
Whose fancy had a thousand fields to skim;
To expectations spreading with wild growth,
And hope that kept with me her plighted troth.

I saw (ambition quickening at the view)
A silver boat launched on a boundless flood;
A pearly crest, like Dian's when it threw
Its brightest splendour round a leafy wood;

ΙΟ

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ONCE I COULD HAIL

But not a hint from under-ground, no sign
Fit for the glimmering brow of Proserpine.*

Or was it Dian's self* that seemed to move
Before me?—nothing blemished the fair sight;
On her I looked whom jocund Fairies love,
Cynthia,* who puts the little stars to flight,
And by that thinning magnifies the great,
For exaltation of her sovereign state.

And when I learned to mark the spectral Shape
As each new Moon obeyed the call of Time,
If gloom fell on me, swift was my escape;
Such happy privilege hath life's gay Prime,
To see or not to see, as best may please

A buoyant Spirit, and a heart at ease.

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Now, dazzling Stranger! when thou meet'st my glance, Thy dark Associate ever I discern;

Emblem of thoughts too eager to advance

While I salute my joys, thoughts sad or stern;
Shades of past bliss, or phantoms that, to gain
Their fill of promised lustre, wait in vain.

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So changes mortal Life with fleeting years;
A mournful change, should Reason fail to bring
The timely insight that can temper fears,
And from vicissitude remove its sting;
While Faith aspires to seats in that domain
Where joys are perfect-neither wax nor wane.

* Terret, lustrat, agit, Proserpina, Luna, Diana;
Ima, suprema, feras, sceptro, fulgore, sagitta.

ED.

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