Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MAY-DAY, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MAY-DAY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come hither, come hither, and view the face
Last Line: "with a world's which shouts, ""rejoice, rejoice!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Delta
Variant Title(s): Spring Morning
Subject(s): Holidays; Trees


I.

COME hither, come hither, and view the face
Of Nature, in all her May-day grace!
By the hedgerow wayside flowers are springing;
On the budded elms the birds are singing;
And up—up—up to the gates of Heaven,
Mounts the lark, on the wings of her rapture driven;
The voice of the streamlet is fresh and loud;
On the sky there is not a speck of cloud:
Come hither, come hither, and join with me
In the season's delightful jubilee!

II.

Haste out of doors: from the pastoral mount
The isles of ocean thine eye may count;
From coast to coast, and from town to town,
You can see the white sails gleaming down,
Like monstrous water-birds, which fling
The golden light from each snowy wing;
And the chimney'd steamboat tossing high
Its volumed smoke to the waste of sky;
While you note, in foam, on the yellow beach,
The tiny billows each chasing each,
Meeting, and mixing, and melting away,
Like happy things in the light of day,
As rack dissolves in the soft blue sky,
Or Time in the sea of Eternity.

III.

Why tarry at home? the swarms of air
Are about, and o'erhead, and every where—
The little fly opens its silken wings,
And from right to left like a blossom flings,
And from side to side, like a thistle-seed,
Uplifted by winds from September mead;
The midge and the moth, from their long, dull sleep,
Venture again on the light to peep,
Over land and lake abroad they fly,
Filling air with their murmurous ecstasy:
The hare leaps up from her brushwood bed,
And limps, and turns her timid head;
The partridge whirrs from the glade; the mole
Pops out from the earth of its wintry hole;
And the perking squirrel's small nose you see
From the fungous nook of its own beech-tree.

IV.

Come hasten, come hither, and you shall see
The beams of that same sun on tower and tree,
That shone over Adam in Eden's bowers,
And drank up the dew of his garden flowers;
Come hither, and look on the same blue sky,
Whose arching cloudlessness blest the eye
Of sapient Solomon, when he sung,
With fluttering heart, and raptured tongue,
"The rain is over and gone—and lo!
The winter is past, and the young flowers blow,
The turtle coos, the green figs swell,
And the tender grapes have a pleasant smell,
The birds are singing to greet the day;
Arise, my fair one, and come away!"

V.

Come hasten ye out: the reviving year
As in a glass makes the past appear;
And, afar from care, and free from strife,
We bask in the sunshine of morning life—
The days when Hope, from her seraph wing,
Rich rainbow hues over earth did fling;
And lo! the blithe throng of the green play-ground—
The cricketers cheer, and the balls rebound—
The marble is shot at the ring—the air
Re-echoes the noises of hounds and hare—
The perish'd and past, the things of yore,
Come back in the loveliest looks they wore,
And faces, long hid in Oblivion's night,
Start from the darkness, and smile in light!

VI.

Come hasten ye hither: our garden bowers
Are green with the promise of budding flowers—
The crocus, and spring's first messenger,
The fairy snowdrop, are blooming here;
The taper-leaf'd tulip is sprouting up;
The hyacinth speaks of its purple cup;
The jonquil boasteth, "Ere few weeks run,
My golden circlet I'll show the sun;"
The gillyflower raises its stem on high,
And peeps on heaven with its pinky eye;
Primroses, an iris-hued multitude,
Woo the bland airs, and in turn are woo'd;
While the wall-flower threatens, with bursting bud,
To darken its blossoms with winter's blood.

VII.

Come here, come hither, and mark how swell
The fruit-buds of the jargonelle;
On its yet but leaflet greening boughs
The apricot open its blossom throws;
The delicate peach-tree's branches run
O'er the warm wall, glad to feel the sun;
And the cherry proclaims of cloudless weather,
When its fruit and the blackbirds will toy together;
See, the gooseberry bushes their riches show;
And the currant-bloom hangs its leaves below;
And the damp-loving rasp saith, "I'll win your praise
With my grateful coolness on harvest days."
Come along, come along, and guess with me
How fair and how fruitful the year shall be!

VIII.

Look into the pasture grounds o'er the pale,
And behold the foal with its switching tail;
About and abroad in its mirth it flies,
With its long black forelocks about its eyes,
Or bends its neck down, with a stretch,
The daisy's earliest flower to reach.
See, as on by the hawthorn fence we pass,
How the sheep are nibbling the tender grass,
Or holding their heads to the sunny ray,
As if their hearts, like its smile, were gay;
While the chattering sparrows, in and out,
Fly the shrubs, and trees, and roofs about;
And sooty rooks, loudly cawing, roam
With sticks and straws to their woodland home.

IX.

Out upon in-door cares! Rejoice
In the thrill of Nature's bewitching voice!
The finger of God hath touch'd the sky,
And the clouds, like a vanquish'd army, fly,
Leaving a rich, wide, azure bow,
O'erspanning the works of His hand below:—
The finger of God hath touch'd the earth,
And it starts from slumber in smiling mirth;
Behold it awake in the bird and bee,
In the springing flower and the sprouting tree,
And the leaping trout, and the lapsing stream,
And the south-wind soft, and the warm sunbeam:—
From the sward beneath, and the boughs above
Come the scent of flowers, and the sounds of love;
Then haste thee hither, and join thy voice
With a world's which shouts, "Rejoice, rejoice!"





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