MAY.

Would that thou couldst laugh for aye,

Merry, ever merry May!

Made of sun gleams, shade and showers

Bursting buds, and breathing flowers,

Dripping locked, and rosy vested,

Violet slippered, rainbow crested;

Girdled with the eglantine,

Festooned with the dewy vine

Merry, ever Merry May,

Would that thou could laugh for aye!

_W.D. Gallagher._

I must give a dainty bit of description from the poet of the poets--our

own romantic Spenser.

Then comes fair May, the fayrest mayde on ground,

Decked with all dainties of the season's pryde,

And throwing flowres out of her lap around.

Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride,

The twins of Leda, which, on eyther side,

Supported her like to their Sovereign queene

Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide,

And leapt and danced as they had ravisht beene!

And Cupid's self about her fluttred all in greene.

Here are a few lines from Herrick.

Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appeare

Re-clothed in freshe and verdant diaper;

Thawed are the snowes, and now the lusty spring

Gives to each mead a neat enameling,

The palmes[058] put forth their gemmes, and every tree

Now swaggers in her leavy gallantry.

The Queen of May--Lady Flora--was the British representative of the

Heathen Goddess Flora. May still returns and ever will return at her

proper season, with all her bright leaves and fragrant blossoms, but men

cease to make the same use of them as of yore. England is waxing

utilitarian and prosaic.

The poets, let others neglect her as they will, must ever do fitting

observance, in songs as lovely and fresh as the flowers of the hawthorn,

To the lady of the vernal hours.

Poor Keats, who was passionately fond of flowers, and everything

beautiful or romantic or picturesque, complains, with a true poet's

earnestness, that in _his_ day in England there were

No crowds of nymphs, soft-voiced and young and gay

In woven baskets, bringing ears of corn,

Roses and pinks and violets, to adorn

The shrine of Flora in her early May.

The Floral Games--_Jeux Floraux_--of Toulouse--first celebrated at the

commencement of the fourteenth century, are still kept up annually with

great pomp and spirit. Clemence Isaure, a French lady, bequeathed to the

Academy of Toulouse a large sum of money for the annual celebration of

these games. A sort of College Council is formed, which not only confers

degrees on those poets who do most honor to the Goddess Flora, but

sometimes grants them more substantial favors. In 1324 the poets were

encouraged to compete for a golden violet and a silver eglantine and

pansy. A century later the prizes offered were an amaranthus of gold of

the value of 400 livres, for the best ode, a violet of silver, valued at

250 livres, for an essay in prose, a silver pansy, worth 200 livres, for

an eclogue, elegy or idyl, and a silver lily of the value of sixty

livres, for the best sonnet or hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary,--for

religion is mixed up with merriment, and heathen with Christian rites.

He who gained a prize three times was honored with the title of Doctor

_en gaye science_, the name given to the poetry of the Provencal

troubadours. A mass, a sermon, and alms-giving, commence the ceremonies.

The French poet, Ronsard who had gained a prize in the floral games, so

delighted Mary Queen of Scots with his verses on the Rose that she

presented him with a silver rose worth L500, with this inscription--"_A

Ronsard, l'Apollon de la source des Muses_."

At Ghent floral festivals are held twice a year when amateur and

professional florists assemble together and contribute each his share of

flowers to the grand general exhibition which is under the direct

patronage of the public authorities. Honorary medals are awarded to the

possessors of the finest flowers.

The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year's day,

when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay

flags streaming from every mast. Their homes and temples are richly hung

with festoons of flowers. Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom,

enkianthus quinque-flora, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are

then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton. Even the Chinese

ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in

flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore.

The Italians, it is said, still have artificers called _Festaroli_,

whose business it is to prepare festoons and garlands. The ancient

Romans were very tasteful in their nosegays and chaplets. Pliny tells us

that the Sicyonians were especially celebrated for the graceful art

exhibited in the arrangement of the varied colors of their garlands, and

he gives us the story of Glycera who, to please her lover Pausias, the

painter of Sicyon, used to send him the most exquisite chaplets of her

own braiding, which he regularly copied on his canvas. He became very

eminent as a flower-painter. The last work of his pencil, and his

master-piece, was a picture of his mistress in the act of arranging a

chaplet. The picture was called the _Garland Twiner_. It is related that

Antony for some time mistrusting Cleopatra made her taste in the first

instance every thing presented to him at her banquets. One day "the

Serpent of old Nile" after dipping her own coronet of flowers into her

goblet drank up the wine and then directed him to follow her example. He

was off his guard. He dipped his chaplet in his cup. The leaves had been

touched with poison. He was just raising the cup to his lips when she

seized his arm, and said "Cease your jealous doubts, for know, that if

I had desired your death or wished to live without you, I could easily

have destroyed you." The Queen then ordered a prisoner to be brought

into their presence, who being made to drink from the cup, instantly

expired.[059]

Some of the nosegays made up by "flower-girls" in London and its

neighbourhood are sold at such extravagant prices that none but the very

wealthy are in the habit of purchasing them, though sometimes a poor

lover is tempted to present his mistress on a ball-night with a bouquet

that he can purchase only at the cost of a good many more leaves of

bread or substantial meals than he can well spare. He has to make every

day a banian-day for perhaps half a month that his mistress may wear a

nosegay for a few hours. However, a lover is often like a cameleon and

can almost live on air--_for a time_--"promise-crammed." 'You cannot

feed capons so.'

At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a

single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a

price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The

colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different

complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers

to the greatest possible advantage.