egg in silence, and then filling the shell with salt, when the sweetheart is sure to make his visit, in some shape or other, before morning. On the same night, too, the stout-hearted watch the church-porch; they go in the evening and lay in the church-porch a branch of a tree, or a flower, large enough to be readily found in the dark, and then return home to wait the approach of midnight. They are to proceed to the church again, before the clock strikes twelve, and to remain in it till it has struck; as many as choose accompany the maid who took the flower, and is to fetch it again, as far as the church gate, and there wait till their adventuring companion returns, who, if she is to be married within the year, is to see a marriage-procession pass by her, with a bride in her own likeness hanging on the arm of her future husband; as many bridesmen and maidens as appear to follow them so many months is the maid to wait before her marriage. If she is to die unmarried, then the procession is to be a funeral consisting of a coffin covered with a white sheet, borne on the shoulders of shadows seen without heads. Upon a sabbath-day it fell, Twice holy was the sabbath-bell That called the folks to evening prayer; From wholesome drench of April rains; The chilly sunset faintly told Of unmatured green vallies cold; Of the green thorny bloomless hedge, KEATS. MAY. Now the bright Morning-star, Day's harbinger, Hail, bounteous May! that dost inspire MILTON. MAY has ever been the favourite month for poetical description, but the praises originally lavished upon it were uttered in climates more southern than our own. In such it really unites all the soft beauties of spring with the radiance of summer, and possesses warmth enough to cheer and invigorate, without overpowering. With us, especially since we have reckoned by the new style, great part of the month is yet too chill for a perfect enjoyment of the charms of nature, and frequent injury is sustained by the flowers and young fruits during its course, from blights and blasting winds. May-day, though still observed as a rural festival, has often little pleasure to bestow except that arising from the name; while the scanty garlands composed in honour of the day, rather display the immature infancy than the luxuriant youth of the year. In a very elegant poem, entitled, "The Tears of Old May Day," this newer rival is thus described : Nor wonder, man, that Nature's bashful face, With showers and sunshine in her fickle eyes, The blast that riots on the Spring's increase? The latter part of the month, however, on the whole, is even in this country sufficiently profuse of beauties. The earth is covered with the freshest green of the grass* and Many a poet has sung the praises of flowers: here is a sweet little song to the grass, by an American poet, which perhaps will not be out of place : |