56 
FLORAL POESY. 
Yet for the bravery that she is in 
Doth neither handle card nor wheel to spin, 
Nor changeth robes but twice ; is never seen 
In other colors than in white or green. 
Learn then, content, young shepherd, from this tree. 
Whose greatest wealth is Nature’s livery.” 
Spenser tells us in his “Shepherd’s Calendar,” 
“ Youth’s folk now flocken everywhere, 
To gather May-baskets and smelling breere; 
And home they hasten the posts to dight, 
And all the kirk-pillars ere daylight, 
With hawthorn-buds, and sweet eglantine, 
And garlands of roses, and sops-in-wine.” 
Herrick, m his “ Hesperides,” has a beautiful idyl 
descriptive of the manner in which maids went a-May- 
ing. 
GOING A-MAY r ING. 
JOHN INGRAM. 
Oh, we will go a-Maying, love, 
A-Maying we will go, 
Beneath the branches swaying, love. 
With weight of scented snow. 
Laburnum’s golden tresses, love, 
Float in the perfumed air ; 
Which heedless their caresses, love. 
Seeks violets in their lair ; 
And with their scents a-playing, love, 
It gambols to and fro— 
Where we will go a-Maying, love, 
Where we will Maying go. 
