Among the changing months, May stands confessed.
The sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed.

3157

The daisies peep from ev'ry field,
And vi'lets sweet their odor yield;
The purple blossom paints the thorn,

And streams reflect the blush of morn.
Then, lads and lasses all, be gay,
For this is Nature's holiday.

3158

Thomson: On May.

Peter Pindar: Pindariana May Day.

In the Orient-light! A haze

O'er the deep night-blackness strays :
Thro' the cloudy pall it poureth,
O'er the mountain scalp it soareth,
Over, through, afar, around,
(Warming all the heart of May,)
Runs the light without a sound,
From the black into the gray,
From the gray into the dawn,
Silvering all its folds of lawn,
Till it bursts upon the Day.

3159

Barry Cornwall: March, April, May

Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who, from her green lap, throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.
3160

Milton: Song on May Morning

"Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume:

There's crimson buds, and white and blue,

The very rainbow showers

Have turned to blossoms where they fell,

And sown the earth with flowers.

3161

Hebe's here, May is here!
The air is fresh and sunny;
And the miser-bees are busy
Hoarding golden honey.
See the knots of buttercups,
And the purple pansies.
3162

Hood: Song. O Lady.

T. B. Aldrich: May.

O May, sweet-voiced one going thus before,
Forever June may pour her warm red wine
Of life and passion, sweeter days are thine.

3163

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring
To-day shall all her dowry bring,
The love of kind, the joy, the grace,
Hymen of element and race,
Knowing well to celebrate

With song and hue and star and state,
With tender light and youthful cheer,
The spousals of the new-born year.

3164 MEASURES.

Helen Hunt: May

Emerson: May-Day. Line 257.

Measures, not men, have always been my mark.

3165

Goldsmith: Good-Natured Man. Act ii

MEETING-see Welcome.

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 3166

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 1.

A hundred thousand welcomes: I could weep,

And I could laugh! I am light, and heavy: welcome:
A curse begin at every root of his heart,
That is not glad to see thee!

3167

Shaks.: Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 1.

It gives me wonder, great as my content,
To see you here before me.

3168

Shaks.: Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Each hour until we meet is as a bird

That wings from far his gradual way along

The rustling covert of my soul, his song

Still loudlier trilled through leaves more deeply stirr'd:

But at the hour of meeting, a clear word

Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue.

3169 Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Winged Hours. Sonnet xv.

We turn the pages that they read,

Their written words we linger o'er,

But in the sun they cast no shade,

No voice is heard, no sign is made,

No step is on the conscious floor!

Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 3170

She wore a wreath of roses,

The night that first we met.

3171

Whittier: Snow-Bonind

Thomas Haynes Bayly: She Wore a Wreath

We met 3172

-

'twas in a crowd.

Thomas Haynes Bayly: We Met

MELANCHOLY –
-see Cheerfulness, Money.
I can suck melancholy out of a song.
3173

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 5.

Shaks.: 1 Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 2.

I am as melancholy as a gib cat.
3174
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth;
And start so often when thou sitt'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And giv'n my treasures, and my rights of thee,
To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy?

3175

Shaks.: 1 Henry IV. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Briefly this,

A mere commotion of the mind, o'ercharged
With fear and sorrow; first begot i' th' brain,
The seat of reason, and from thence deriv'd
As suddenly into the heart, the seat
Of our affection.

3176

Ford: Lover's Melancholy. Act iii. Sc. 1

These pleasures, Melancholy, give; And I with thee will choose to live. 3177

Milton: Il Penseroso. Line 175

O'er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,
Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws
A death-like silence and a dread repose;
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades ev'ry flower, and darkens ev'ry green;
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods.
3178

Pope: Eloisa to A. Line 163.

Why shines the sun, except that he
Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide,
And pensive shades for Melancholy.
3179

Hood: Ode to Melancholy. Line 27

With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd,
Pale Melancholy sat retir'd;

And from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul.
3180

Collins: Ode. The Passions. Line 57

As melancholy as an unbraced drum.

3181

Centlivre: Wonder. Act ii. Sc. 1

I would not always reason.

The straight path

Wearies us with its never-varying lines,

And we grow melancholy.

3182 William Cullen Bryant: Conj. of Jupiter and Venus Go, you may call it madness, folly, You shall not chase my gloom away; There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay! 3183

MELROSE ABBEY.

Rogers: To

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight,

For the gay beams of lightsome day

Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

3184

MEMORIALS.

Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. St. L

MEMORY- see Absence, Remembrance.
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.

3186

Bohn: Ms.

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,

That youth and observation copied there.

3187

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

Memory, the daughter of Attention, is the teeming mother

of Wisdom,

And safer is he that storeth knowledge, than he that would make it for himself.

3188 Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Thinking. Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

3189

Goldsmith: Des. Village. Line &

O Memory! thou fond deceiver!
Still importunate and vain;
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain.
3190

Goldsmith: Captivity. Acti. Sc. 1.

Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
3191

Byron: Mar. Faliero. Act ii. Sc. 1

In that instant, o'er his soul
Winters of Memory seem'd to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years.
3192

Byron: Giaour. Line 261.

Alas! that heedlessness of all around Bespoke remembrance only too profound. 3193

Byron: Lara. Canto i. St. 23.

The eyes of memory will not sleep,
Its ears are open still,

And vigils with the past they keep
Against my feeble will.

3194

--

Whittier: Knight of St. John.

I love it I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair!
3195
Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
3196

Eliza Cook: The Old Arm-Chair.

Rogers: Pleasures of Mem. Pt. ii. Line 429. Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain. Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise! Each stamps its image as the other flies. 3197 Rogers: Pleasures of Mem. Pt. i. Line 171. Sweet memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail, To view the fairy-haunts of long-lost hours, Blest with far greener shades, far lovelier flowers. 3198

I remember

Rogers: Pleasures of Mem. Pt. ii. Line 1.
I remember

How my childhood fleeted by,
The mirth of its December,
And the warmth of its July.
3199

Praed: I Remember, I Remember