Nor did the Poet of the World, William Shakespeare, hesitate to
Do observance to a morn of May.
He makes one of his characters (in _King Henry VIII_.) complain that it
is as impossible to keep certain persons quiet on an ordinary day, as it
is to make them sleep on May-day--once the time of universal merriment--
when every one was wont "_to put himself into triumph_."
'Tis as much impossible,
Unless we sweep 'em from the doors with cannons
To scatter 'em, _as 'tis to make 'em sleep
On May-day Morning_.
Spenser duly celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender,"
Thilke mery moneth of May
When love-lads masken in fresh aray,
when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods
with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds."
Sicker[043] this morowe, no longer agoe,
I saw a shole of shepeardes outgoe
With singing and shouting and iolly chere:
Before them yode[044] a lustre tabrere,[045]
That to the many a hornepype playd
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see those folks make such iovysaunce,
Made my heart after the pype to daunce.
Tho[046] to the greene wood they speeden hem all
To fetchen home May with their musicall;
And home they bringen in a royall throne
Crowned as king; and his queene attone[047]
Was LADY FLORA.
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