My Poem of the Month: A Celebration of this Sweet and Merry Month of May

: Written by: Kamran Mofid; Published: 26 April 2021; Hits: 2209

My Poem of the Month: A Celebration of this Sweet and Merry Month of May

Photo: Facebook

The world wakes up in springtime. Having been dark and cold through the winter months, suddenly flowers are blooming, birds are singing, the days are getting brighter, and sunshine is beautifully warmer —and inviting action, inspiration and commitments to fresh starts in each of us.

What better way to sing the praises of Spring’s arrival and to embrace the positive, hopeful nature of spring and the hopeful message of May than to read beautiful poetry.

In May

‘Yes, I will spend the livelong day

With Nature in this month of May;

And sit beneath the trees, and share

My bread with birds whose homes are there;

While cows lie down to eat, and sheep

Stand to their necks in grass so deep;

While birds do sing with all their might,

As though they felt the earth in flight.

This is the hour I dreamed of, when

I sat surrounded by poor men;

And thought of how the Arab sat

Alone at evening, gazing at

The stars that bubbled in clear skies;

And of young dreamers, when their eyes

Enjoyed methought a precious boon

In the adventures of the Moon

Whose light, behind the Clouds' dark bars,

Searched for her stolen flocks of stars.

When I, hemmed in by wrecks of men,

Thought of some lonely cottage then

Full of sweet books; and miles of sea,

With passing ships, in front of me;

And having, on the other hand,

A flowery, green, bird-singing land.’- William Henry Davies

Ode, Composed On A May Morning

By one of my most favorite poets and teacher, William Wordsworth

Photo; pinterest

'While from the purpling east departs

The star that led the dawn,

Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,

For May is on the lawn.

A quickening hope, a freshening glee,

Foreran the expected Power,

Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree,

Shakes off that pearly shower.

All Nature welcomes Her whose sway

Tempers the year's extremes;

Who scattereth lustres o'er noon-day,

Like morning's dewy gleams;

While mellow warble, sprightly trill,

The tremulous heart excite;

And hums the balmy air to still

The balance of delight..'-Ode, Composed On A May Morning

Photo: Pook Press

Steeped in folklore magic, May Day marks the halfway point between the spring equinox and summer solstice.

‘May 1st has been celebrated for thousands of years. The earliest known celebrations of May are Floralia – the festival of Flora, celebrating the Roman Goddess of flowers during the Roman Republic era. Throughout history, the celebration’s theme lies in that of fertility, nature and the summer season, with the Celtic celebration Beltane (translating to ‘lucky fire’) blessing the movement of cattle to summer pastures.’

Excerpt from May-Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring

Today 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.

Lo love’s inundation poured

Over space and race abroad...'- May-Day

And now an excerpt from from 'The Springtide of Life '– Illustrated by Arthur Rackham to celebrate this wonderful time of year, The May Day:

SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,

Rise, let the time of year be May,

Speak now the word that April hears,

Let March have all his royal way;

Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears

All tunes her children hear or play,

Because the crown of eight glad years

On one bright head is set to-day.

What matters cloud or sun to-day

To him who wears the wreath of years

So many, and all like flowers at play

With wind and sunshine, while his ears

Hear only song on every way?

More sweet than spring triumphant hears

Ring through the revel-rout of May

Are these, the notes that winter fears...'- Eight Years

Not forgetting this lovely poem, ‘Song on May Morning' by John Milton:

Clusters of nodding cowslip flowers are a sight to behold in British springtime.-Photo:KEW Gardens

‘Song on May Morning'

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The Flowry 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.

Photo:Optometry Times

Now, I would like to note a very beautiful and timely poem by the Irish poet, Derek Mahon, ‘Everything is Going to be All Right’, given the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic:

‘Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart;

the sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.’

Following on ‘Everything is Going to be All Right’, one of my favorite May poems is the one by William Carlos Williams, ‘Spring and All’

A season of vulnerability and hope

Photo:Reprocasel

N.B .’The poem captures the inception of spring in a field in New Jersey with photographic precision—both the fragility and the strength of new life pushing up through the twiggy, weedy, stagnant landscape. William Carlos Williams was an obstetrician and pediatrician, and when he observes of the young shoots, “They enter the new world naked . . . uncertain of all save that they enter,” his language makes the connection to another kind of urgent new life.

‘Williams’s poem holds together two nearly incompatible apprehensions: of exhilaration and celebration of the return of life after winter; of danger, and fear, grief and compassion for life’s victims.

I watch daffodils and forsythia bloom outside my window, and the buds of the lilacs and cherry trees begin to swell, and I feel hope. At the same time, I think about friends who are sick, and those we’ve lost, and how vulnerable we all are. This is our world, the world that Dr. Williams was showing us, almost one hundred years ago, in another season of vulnerability and hope.’

Spring and All

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the

waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches—

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter. All about them

the cold, familiar wind—

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined—

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance—Still, the profound change

has come upon them: rooted they

grip down and begin to awaken’- See more: Max Rudin, President & Publisher, Library of America

And now, let me take you back to ‘the merry month of May’, which may possibly originate from Thomas Dekker's (c. 1572–1632) poem of that name*.

A Celebration of The Merry Month of May

Limbourg Brothers, May calendar page from “Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry”

(The Duke of Berry’s Very Fine Book of Hours), ca. 1412-1416. Ms. 65, Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.

O the month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!

O, and then did I unto my true love say:

"Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen!

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,

The sweetest singer in all the forest's choir,

Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale;

Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;

See where she sitteth: come away, my joy;

Come away, I prithee: I do not like the cuckoo

Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy."

O the month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!

And then did I unto my true love say:

"Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen!"

Another favourite poem of mine is Corinna's Going A-Maying BY Robert Herrick, which celebrates the old English custom of young couples marking May Day by going out into the fields and woods around their villages, excursions that frequently ended up in marriages. Herrick's Corinna is portrayed as a latter-day Flora, goddess of flowers, spring and fertility, whose mere passing causes the village streets to turn to fields of blossom.

Village Scene With Dance Around the Maypole – Pieter Bruegel, the Elder (1634)

Corinna's Going A-Maying

‘Get up, get up for shame, the Blooming Morne

Upon her wings presents the god unshorne.

See how Aurora throwes her faire

Fresh-quilted colours through the aire:

Get up, sweet-Slug-a-bed, and see

The Dew-bespangling Herbe and Tree.

Each Flower has wept, and bow'd toward the East,

Above an houre since; yet you not drest,

Nay! not so much as out of bed?

When all the Birds have Mattens seyd,

And sung their thankful Hymnes: 'tis sin,

Nay, profanation to keep in,

When as a thousand Virgins on this day,

Spring, sooner than the Lark, to fetch in May.

Rise; and put on your Foliage, and be seene

To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and greene;

And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For Jewels for your Gowne, or Haire:

Feare not; the leaves will strew

Gemms in abundance upon you...':-Continue and read the entire poem

Following Corinna's Going A-Maying, my second Herrick’s poem is 'The May-Pole', which marks another old English custom, the putting up of poles on village greens for the local maidens to dance around. The implicit connection with fertility is made explicit in the final line of the poem, when Herrick calls on the dancers, once they wed, to "multiply all, like to fishes".*

The Maypole by Peter Miller

‘THE May-pole is up,

Now give me the cup,

I'll drink to the garlands around it ;

But first unto those

Whose hands did compose

The glory of flowers that crown'd it.

A health to my girls,

Whose husbands may earls

Or lords be, granting my wishes,

And when that ye wed

To the bridal bed,

Then multiply all, like to fishes.’

Photo: Catholic News World

At this point, I should mention that although many May poems are bound up with an essentially pagan view of the month; fertility and physical love, we should not forget that ‘for Christians May is the month of Mary, a connection that lies behind one of the finest of all May poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins' The May Magnificat’, a poem that bridges the theological and pagan worlds with an elegant span.’*

May Magnificat

May is Mary's month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why:

Her feasts follow reason,

Dated due to season—

Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

Why fasten that upon her,

With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunest