HAWTHORN ii 



In L' Allegro of Milton we find the oft-quoted lines — 



And every shepherd tells his tale 

 Under the hawthorn in the dale, 



Some prosaic souls have ventured to assert that this 

 proceeding -has absolutely nothing to do with the tender 

 passion — that the hawthorn was merely a convenient land- 

 mark to assemble his flock of sheep around while he 

 numbered them — but we have seen that Goldsmith very 

 definitely indeed assigned the hawthorn's shade to his 

 whispering lovers, while Burns, no less, " beneath the milk- 

 white thorn " introduces us to a " youthful, loving, modest 

 pair," who, whatever the engrossing subject of their 

 thoughts, are certainly not counting sheep. Moore, 

 apostrophising May and all its flowers, gives place pre- 

 eminent to the " sweetly scented thorn " ; and Kirk White 

 writes of " fragrant hawthorn, snowy flowered." Burns, 

 Keats, Scott, and many others of our poets have happy 

 reference in their works to the charm of the flower, though 

 space will scarce permit quotation. 



It is curious to reflect how these May-day celebrations, 

 the mirth, the music, the dancing around the gaily decorated 

 Maypole, like the rejoicings in our homes around the 

 brightly lighted Christmas-tree bearing its gifts amidst 

 its verdure, are survivals of pagan observance. The whole 

 subject of Tree-Worship is very wonderful, and of 

 abounding interest. We read in the Bible of the worship 

 in the sacred groves, and we find the sacred tree an object 

 of adoration amongst the Chaldeans forty centuries before 

 the Christian era. We see it again on the slabs from 

 the palace-temples of Nineveh and on the ancient buildings 

 of a bygone race in Mexico, while the Greeks sought 



