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village rrreen. With what" truth and beauty lias the 
poet, just quoted, described the merry gambols of which 
this tree is, we were going to say, the almost sympa¬ 
thising witness, so well does its cheerful, rustic aspect, 
O 7 
suit the scene: — 
« IIow often have I bless’d the coming day 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labour free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree ! 
While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
The young contending as the old survey’d; 
And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground. 
And sleights of art, and feats of strength went round.” 
Formerly, on May-day and at Whitsuntide, as well as 
at Christmas, houses, and even churches, were profusely 
decorated with flowers or evergreens peculiar to the 
season. This custom is still preserved at Christmas, 
when almost every temple and every window boasts 
its sprig of holly: and in some places May-day is thus 
appropriately ushered in; the hawthorn blossom, when 
the season is a forward one, being substituted for the 
evergreen ! These practices, however, — to the joy of 
some, and to the grief of others, — are now certainly on 
the decline; but we are assured by the greatest poet of 
