Verse > Anthologies > William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. > The Book of Elizabethan Verse
  PREVIOUSNEXT  
CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
William Stanley Braithwaite, ed.  The Book of Elizabethan Verse.  1907.
 
The Merry Month of May
By Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
 
From “The Shepheardes Calender:” Maye

IS 1 not thilke the merry month of May,
When love-lads masken in fresh array?
How falls it, then, we no merrier been,
Ylike as others, girt in gaudy green?
Our blanket liveries been all too sad        5
For thilke same season, when all is yclad
With pleasaunce; the ground with grass, the woods
With green leaves, the bushes with blossoming buds.
Young folk now flocken in everywhere
To gather May buskets and smelling brere;        10
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light,
With hawthorne buds and sweet eglantine,
And garlands of roses and sops-in-wine.
 
Note 1. From the Shepherd’s Calendar: May: sung by Palinode and Piers. Mr. Quiller-Couch, in his Golden Pomp, says: “This is one of the few instances in which I have ventured to make a short extract from a long poem and present it as a separate lyric.” Mr. Couch’s action has proved so successful for his purpose I have followed his example here. [back]
 
 
CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  PREVIOUSNEXT  
 
Loading
Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.
Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry
© 1993–2013 Bartleby.com · [Top 150]