youth and the hopes of the year? Scarce had the rising sun announced the arrival of this festive morn, than the entire youthful population hastened into the woods and meadows, to the river-bank and hill-side, accompanied by the sounds of music, to gather their harvest of flowers; and, returning laden with hawthorn and verdure, adorned the doors and windows of their houses with their spoils, covered with blossoms the May-pole which they had cut in the forest, and crowned with garlands the horns of the oxen which were to drag it in triumph through the village. Herrick, a contemporary of Shakspeare, thus invites his mistress to go a Maying:
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colors through the air;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept, and bow’d toward the east
Above an hour since, yet you are not dress’d,
Nay, not so much as out of bed;
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns: ’tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in,
When, as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.
How each field turns a street, each street a park
Made green, and trimm’d with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,
Made up of white thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.”
The elegance of the cottages on May morning was imitated by the castles; and the young gentlefolks, as well as the lads and maidens of the village, went forth into the
