 | The works of Washington Irving |  |
MAY-DAY CUSTOMS.
Happy the age, and harmlesse were the dayes,
(For then true love and amity was found,)
When every village did a May-pole raise,
And Whitsun ales and May-games did abound:
And all the lusty yonkers in a rout,
With merry lasses daunced the red about,
Then friendship to their banquets bid the guests,
And poore men far'd the better for their feasts.
(For then true love and amity was found,)
When every village did a May-pole raise,
And Whitsun ales and May-games did abound:
And all the lusty yonkers in a rout,
With merry lasses daunced the red about,
Then friendship to their banquets bid the guests,
And poore men far'd the better for their feasts.
Pasquil's Palinodia.
The month of April has nearly passed
away, and we are fast approaching that
poetical day, which was considered, in
old times, as the boundary that parted
the frontiers of winter and summer.
With all its caprices, however, I like
the month of April. I like these laughing
and crying days, when sun and
shade seem to run in billows over the
landscape. I like to see the sudden
shower coursing over the meadow and
giving all nature a greener smile; and
the bright sunbeams chasing the flying
cloud, and turning all its drops into
diamonds.
I was enjoying a morning of the kind
in company with the squire in one of the
finest parts of the park. We were skirting
a beautiful grove, and he was giving
me a kind of