University of Virginia Library

MAYTIME.

What are the small birds saying?
That I should go a-Maying?
“Ah May, May, May,
Sweet May, sweet May!
Do you love May?”
Thus they forever chirp in carol gay.
Prithee why should not I,
Marking their rapturous flight across the sky,
Echo to thee their spring-tide harmony?
Do I love May? Sweet birds,
A blessing for your sympathetic words!
Yea: more, far more than you or I can say.
Tell me, why is it that the name of June
Hath no such sweet associated tune?
Is it the hopeful play
Of possibilities in that coy “May”?
Perchance June's summer dust
Would soil the freshness of that “May” with “Must.”
That 's the mistake
We mortals ever make.
The shy wild-rose new-blown
We covet for our own;
And yet she droops when tied
To some dull stake, a limp defenceless bride.
No hot-house flower
Should share my true love's dower!
Give me the anxious thrill
That hangs upon an undetermined will!
Let May be ever “May,”
And in her girlish freedom laugh and play,
Nor doff the dainty mien
Of innocent sixteen.—
Then shall my pained heart flutter
Like a sweet bird with love it may not utter;
Nor know what blossoms hath
The gracious goddess showered in my path.
Ah, May dear, draw the curtain
Over thy smile uncertain.
For, be it tears that come,
My sorrow shall be dumb.—
Yet may I find
Perchance in some shy nook,
Betrayed of soft sweet-scented wind,
A violet by a brook;
Or one rare trembling white anemone
No other favored soul shall ever see.
No one but me
To catch in fairy dells
The tinkling of thy highland-lily bells,
Or watch the pure surprise
That shimmers in the blue-tipped grasses' eyes.
Shall I not press my cheek
Upon the daisies of thy fancy meek,
And let my soul be kissed
By furry, lithesome things,
The elemental spirits of the mist,
That float upon the dandelion's wings?
O May, if I should woo,
Not as a bee
With noisy minstrelsy,
If I should come to you
As comes a timid white-winged butterfly
Smiling to live, or smiling still to die,
What would you do?—
Nay sweet, haste not to tell.
I would not have you solve the mystic spell,
The pleasing riddle which the birds are singing,
In sweet reiteration ringing,
“O May, May, May,
Dost love me, May?”
Ah lack-a-day!
What is it I am saying?
I must be off if I would go a-Maying.