Impressions 



meaning ; happiness is one of them. Go a-May- 

 ing and see if I am not right. 



Those who dedicated our fifth month to Ma'ia, 

 the mother of Mercury, knew Nature well and 

 appreciated the fitness of things ; but I suspect 

 the chroniclers are wrong and that she, herself, 

 chose it as peculiarly her own and gave to it 

 her name. Truth, for once, is of little moment, 

 and I prefer my own fancy to the declared fact 

 of another. 



This is May first. Yearly reincarnated, she 

 was present when, in an absolutely cloudless 

 sky, the sun rose. The thrush, robin and wren 

 knew the date as one set apart from the routine 

 of the year, but they gave place to the gros- 

 beak. He was May's chosen trumpeter to-day. 

 The day, the hour, the outlook, are spiritual 

 now and voice themselves in the song of a bird. 

 May-day calls for no Quaker-like simplicity. 

 Secretly we all love pomp, and so fancy the 

 songs of May-day birds the announcement of 

 our coming, as though we were really the lords 

 of Creation. We can go a-Maying backward, 

 as when we have anticipated all we look for; 

 or go forward, all expectancy, disregarding 

 past or future, accepting the passing moment as 



55 



