ROSE TRIBE 263 



Plant perennial. A welcome sight in early spring are the green knots of 

 the Hawthorn-tree. In March they are just breaking forth into leaves, and 

 daily expanding further, till in May every bough is feathered Avith delicate 

 green spray, and the small ivory balls are opening into cups studded with 

 pink stamens. The Hawthorn is seldom in flower on the 1st of May, though 

 before the alteration of the Calendar, when May Day was twelve days later 

 than it now is, the flowers may often have been out by May Day. Doubtless 

 those days were very mirthful ones, and linked with many pleasing associa- 

 tions, when, as Chaucer describes : — 



' ' Fourth goeth al tlie Court both most and lest, 

 To fetch the flouris fresh, and branche and blome." 



And when not the courtiers only, but the lowliest of men and maidens 

 sallied forth — 



"To do observaunce to a morn of May." 



Bourne tells us, in his "Antiquities," that all ranks of people went out 

 " a maying," and that the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a 

 little after midnight on the morning of the day, and walk to some neigh- 

 bouring wood, accompanied by the blowing of horns and other music, when 

 they broke down branches of the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and 

 crowns of flowers. This done, they returned home at sunrise, and decked 

 the doors and windows with the tokens of the flowering spring. Chaucer, 

 Herrick, Shakspere, Milton, and many another poet might be cited as adding 

 their testimony to these usages : and Henry VI. desired Lydgate, then a 

 monk at Bury, to write a joyful poem for May Day. This poem contained 

 sixteen stanzas, setting forth the various processes of Nature in sap and leaf, 

 and ending with a commendation of May Day games. Spenser, in his 

 "Shepherd's Calender," says : — 



' ' Youth's folke now flocken in every- where 

 To gather May buskets and smelling breere, 

 And home they hasten the postes to dight, 

 And all the kirk pillars ere daylight, 

 Witli Hawthoin buds and sweet eglantine, 

 And girlonds of roses and sops in wine. 

 * * * * 



To see these folkes make such jovisaunce, 

 Made my heart after the pipe to daunce ; 

 Tho' to the greene woodes they speeden them all, 

 To fetchen home May with their musical! ; 



Oh that I were there, 

 To helpen the ladies their May-bush to beare !" 



Innocent as these customs were in their design, and often doubtless in their 

 enjoyment, yet, in the neighbourhood of large towns especially, they became 

 somewhat like the ancient Floralia, from whence they were derived, and the 

 virtuous gradually withdrew from the scenes of riot and dissipation, so that 

 the Maying, and the setting up of Maypoles, and the going out to gather the 

 May-dew for the beautifying of the complexions, have all passed away, 

 leaving us no trace of these doings save in the little garland yet borne by 

 country children on May Day from house to house. The Reformers strove 

 to abolish the May games, and gradually succeeded in so doing. Bourne, 



