This poem is a series of clearly drawn pictures
grouped about a central image of the month of May
as the builder of a house. While you read it,
preferably aloud, try to see the pictures and feel
the rhythm of the words. The thought in the last
stanza may remind you of the "Ode to a Butterfly."
Richard Le Gallienne is a poet of our own day, now
living in this country.
(Used by permission of the author)
May is building her house. With apple blooms
She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;
Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,
And, spinning all day at her secret looms,
With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall 5
She pictureth over, and peopleth it all
With echoes and dreams
And singing of streams.
May is building her house. Of petal and blade,
Of the roots of the oak, is the flooring made; 10
With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,
Each small miracle over and over,
And tender, traveling green things strayed.
Her windows, the morning and evening star,
And her rustling doorways, ever ajar 15
With the coming and going
Of fair things blowing,
The thresholds of the four winds are.
May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October's tossed and trodden gold
She is making the young year out of the old;
Yea: out of winter's flying sleet 5
She is making all the summer sweet,
And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet
She is changing back again to spring's.
1. What form the roof, the beams, the floors, the
doors and windows, of the house of May? What is
arras? When was it used? Why was it so called? What
form the hangings and the carpets of the house? Who
inhabit it? Why are the rooms "glimmering"?
2. What is October's "tossed and trodden gold"? Is
the poet telling the truth in the last stanza?
Explain what is meant.
3. This verse is different in form from most that
you have studied. Do you think it is especially
suited to the subject?