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A MAY-DAY SONG.
Come out, come out from cities;
For once your drudging stay;
With work 'twere thousand pities
To wrong this honoured day;
Your fathers met the May
With laughter, dance and tabor;
Come, be as wise as they;
Come, steal to-day from labour.
For once your drudging stay;
With work 'twere thousand pities
To wrong this honoured day;
Your fathers met the May
With laughter, dance and tabor;
Come, be as wise as they;
Come, steal to-day from labour.
Is this the proof we're wiser
Than all who've gone before,
That Nature, less we prize her
Than those who lived of yore?
Their May-day sacrifice
Shall we not hold a duty,
And pay with hearts and eyes
Due honour to her beauty?
Than all who've gone before,
That Nature, less we prize her
Than those who lived of yore?
Their May-day sacrifice
Shall we not hold a duty,
And pay with hearts and eyes
Due honour to her beauty?
Talk not of want of leisure;
Believe me, life was made
For laughter, mirth and pleasure,
Far more than toil and trade;
And little short I hold
That social state from madness,
For daily bread where's sold
Man's natural right to gladness.
Believe me, life was made
For laughter, mirth and pleasure,
Far more than toil and trade;
And little short I hold
That social state from madness,
For daily bread where's sold
Man's natural right to gladness.
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Then out from lane and alley,
From court and busy street,
Through glade and grassy valley,
With songs the May to meet;
For, jests and laughter, care
From all things could but borrow;
The earth, the very air
Are death to thoughts of sorrow.
From court and busy street,
Through glade and grassy valley,
With songs the May to meet;
For, jests and laughter, care
From all things could but borrow;
The earth, the very air
Are death to thoughts of sorrow.
Come, hear the silver prattle
Of brooks that babbling run
Through pastures green, where cattle
Lie happy in the sun;
Where violets' hidden eyes
Are watching May's sweet coming,
And gnats and burnished flies
Its welcome loud are humming.
Of brooks that babbling run
Through pastures green, where cattle
Lie happy in the sun;
Where violets' hidden eyes
Are watching May's sweet coming,
And gnats and burnished flies
Its welcome loud are humming.
In song the spring comes welling
To-day from out the grass;
And not a hedge but's telling
Earth's gladness as you pass;
Far up the bright blue sky
The quivering lark is singing;
The thrush in copses nigh
Shouts out the joy it's bringing.
To-day from out the grass;
And not a hedge but's telling
Earth's gladness as you pass;
Far up the bright blue sky
The quivering lark is singing;
The thrush in copses nigh
Shouts out the joy it's bringing.
Then leave your weary moiling,
Your desks and shops to-day;
'Tis sin to waste in toiling
This jubilee of May.
Come, stretch you where the light
Through golden limes is streaming,
And spend, O rare delight!
An hour in summer dreaming.
Your desks and shops to-day;
'Tis sin to waste in toiling
This jubilee of May.
Come, stretch you where the light
Through golden limes is streaming,
And spend, O rare delight!
An hour in summer dreaming.
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