It is said that birds about this time
will become restless in their cages, as if instinct with the season,
conscious of the revelry that is going on in the groves, and impatient
to break from their bondage, and join in the jubilee of the year. In
like manner I have felt myself excited, even in the midst of the
metropolis, when the windows, which had been churlishly closed all
winter, were again thrown open to receive the balmy breath of May;
when the sweets of the country were breathed into the town, and
flowers were cried about the streets. I have considered the treasures
of flowers thus poured in, as so many missives from nature, inviting
us forth to enjoy the virgin beauty of the year, before its freshness
is exhaled by the heats of sunny summer.
One can readily imagine what a gay scene it must have been in jolly
old London, when the doors were decorated with flowering branches,
when every hat was decked with hawthorn, and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck,
Maid Marian, the morris-dancers, and all the other fantastic masks and
revellers, were performing their antics about the May-pole in every
part of the city.
I am not a bigoted admirer of old times and old customs, merely
because of their antiquity: but while I rejoice in the decline of many
of the rude usages and coarse amusements of former days, I cannot but
regret that this innocent and fanciful festival has fallen into
disuse.
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