The year hath first his jocund spring,

Wherein the leaves, to birds' sweet carolling,

Dance with the wind; then sees the summer's day

Perfect the embryon blossom of each spray;

Next cometh autumn, when the threshÈd sheaf

Loseth his grain, and every tree his leaf;

Lastly, cold winter's rage, with many a storm,

Threats the proud pines which Ida's top adorn,

And makes the sap leave succourless the shoot,

Shrinking to comfort his decaying root.

I have seen the Lady of the May

Set in an arbour, on a holiday,

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains

Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,

When envious night commands them to be gone

Call for the merry youngsters one by one,

And for their well performance soon disposes:

To this a garland interwove with roses,

To that a carvÈd hook or well-wrought scrip,

Gracing another with her cherry lip;

To one her garter, to another then

A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again;

And none returneth empty that hath spent

His pains to fill their rural merriment.

As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne

To take the kind air of a wistful morn

Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe

More strains than from my pipe can ever flow),

Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin

To chide the river for his clam'rous din;

There seem'd another in his song to tell,

That what the fair stream did he liked well;

And going further heard another too,

All varying still in what the others do;

A little thence, a fourth with little pain

Conn'd all their lessons, and them sung again;

So numberless the songsters are that sing

In the sweet groves of the too-careless spring,

That I no sooner could the hearing lose

Of one of them, but straight another rose,

As I have seen when on the breast of Thames

A heavenly bevy of sweet English dames,

In some calm ev'ning of delightful May,

With music give a farewell to the day,

Or as they would, with an admired tone,

Greet Night's ascension to her ebon throne,

Rapt with their melody a thousand more

Run to be wafted from the bounding shore.

The mounting lark (day's herald) got on wing,

Bidding each bird choose out his bough and sing.

The lofty treble sung the little wren;

Robin the mean, that best of all loves men;

The nightingale the tenor, and the thrush

The counter-tenor sweetly in a bush.

And that the music might be full in parts,

Birds from the groves flew with right willing hearts;

But (as it seem'd) they thought (as do the swains,

Which tune their pipes on sack'd Hibernia's plains)

There should some droning part be, therefore will'd

Some bird to fly into a neighb'ring field,

In embassy unto the King of Bees,

To aid his partners on the flowers and trees

Who, condescending, gladly flew along

To bear the bass to his well-tuned song.

The daisy scatter'd on each mead and down,

A golden tuft within a silver crown;

(Fair fall that dainty flower! and may there be

No shepherd grac'd that doth not honour thee!)

The primrose, when with six leaves gotten grace

Maids as a true-love in their bosoms place;

The spotless lily, by whose pure leaves be

Noted the chaste thoughts of virginity;

Carnations sweet with colour like the fire,

The fit impresas for inflam'd desire;

The harebell for her stainless azur'd hue

Claims to be worn of none but those are true;

The rose, like ready youth, enticing stands,

And would be cropp'd if it might choose the hands,

The yellow kingcup Flora them assign'd

To be the badges of a jealous mind;

The orange-tawny marigold: the night

Hides not her colour from a searching sight....

The columbine in tawny often taken,

Is then ascrib'd to such as are forsaken;

Flora's choice buttons of a russet dye

Is hope even in the depth of misery.

The Muses' friend (grey-eyed Aurora) yet

Held all the meadows in a cooling sweat,

The milk-white gossamers not upwards snow'd,

Nor was the sharp and useful-steering goad

Now great Hyperion left his golden throne

That on the dancing waves in glory shone,

For whose declining on the western shore

The oriental hills black mantles wore,

And thence apace the gentle twilight fled,

That had from hideous caverns ushered

All-drowsy Night, who in a car of jet,

By steeds of iron-grey, which mainly sweat

Moist drops on all the world, drawn through the sky,

The helps of darkness waited orderly.

First thick clouds rose from all the liquid plains;

Then mists from marishes, and grounds whose veins

Were conduit-pipes to many a crystal spring;

From standing pools and fens were following

Unhealthy fogs; each river, every rill

Sent up their vapours to attend her will

These pitchy curtains drew 'twixt earth and heaven

And as Night's chariot through the air was driven,

Clamour grew dumb, unheard was shepherd's song

And silence girt the woods; no warbling tongue

Unto a pleasant grove or such like place,

Where here the curious cutting of a hedge:

There, by a pond, the trimming of the sedge:

Here the fine setting of well-shading trees:

The walks there mounting up by small degrees,

The gravel and the green so equal lie,

It, with the rest, draws on your ling'ring eye:

Here the sweet smells that do perfume the air,

Arising from the infinite repair

Of odoriferous buds and herbs of price,

(As if it were another Paradise)

So please the smelling sense, that you are fain

Where last you walk'd to turn and walk again.

There the small birds with their harmonious notes

Sing to a spring that smileth as she floats:

For in her face a many dimples show,

And often skips as it did dancing go:

Here further down an over-arched alley,

That from a hill goes winding in a valley,

You spy at end thereof a standing lake,

Where some ingenious artist strives to make

The water (brought in turning pipes of lead

Through birds of earth most lively fashioned)

To counterfeit and mock the sylvans all,

In singing well their own set madrigal.

This with no small delight retains your ear,

And makes you think none blest but who live there.

Then in another place the fruits that be

In gallant clusters decking each good tree,

Now as an angler melancholy standing

Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,

A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,

Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:

Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,

Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,

He long stands viewing of the curled stream;

At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream

Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away,

He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,

Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill,

Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill;

Then all his line he freely yieldeth him,

Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim

Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud,

There underneath the banks, then in the mud,

And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal,

That each one takes his hide, or starting hole:

By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath

A willow lies.

So when the pretty rill a place espies,

Where with the pebbles she would wantonize,

And that her upper stream so much doth wrong her

To drive her thence, and let her play no longer;

If she with too loud mutt'ring ran away,

As being much incens'd to leave her play,

A western, mild and pretty whispering gale

Came dallying with the leaves along the dale,

And seem'd as with the water it did chide,

Because it ran so long unpacified:

Yea, and methought it bade her leave that coil,

Or he would choke her up with leaves and soil:

Whereat the riv'let in my mind did weep,

And hurl'd her head into a silent deep.