** Red'cheeked gardens that revel in Spring*" 



SWINBURNE. 



MAY 



A million golden chalices 



Look upward to the sun ; 

 They tell that days of Springtime speed, 



Of Summer-time begun ; 

 They spread their cloth of golden cups 



Beneath the Maytime skies ; 

 Filled overfull with fairy wine, 



Distilled for butterflies. 



Oh, Maytime days, when buttercups 



Are set in all the fields, 

 And every fair, unfolding hour 



Some newer beauty yields. 

 Oh, golden hours of youth and May, 



Days of unclouded skies, 

 Whose time is short as is the flow'rs, 



Brief as the butterflies ! 



CPRING is complete! All things that belong to Spring, 

 ^ waited for throughout the long, bare days, are ours 

 again. Some of the first joys have passed away joys that 

 were felt when the earliest green touched the hedges which 

 are now unfolded into dense walls of emerald. Spring ! 

 complete in all her magic loveliness of tint and tune : in 

 the garden, in the meadow, by the river ; in the deep wood 

 everywhere overflowing with completeness. We know 

 when Spring is ended; one flower brings with it the news. 

 Very beautifully of this time Richard Jefferies speaks : " A 

 June rose ! Something caught my eye on the top of the 

 high hawthorn hedge one evening when it was growing dusk, 



