| |
| NOW had the beam of Titan gay | |
| Usher’d in the blissful May, | |
| Scattering from his pearly bed, | |
| Fresh dew on every mountain’s head; | |
| Nature mild and debonair, | 5 |
| To thee, fair maid, yields up her care. | |
| May, with gentle plastic hand, | |
| Clothes in flowery robe the land; | |
| O’er the vales the cowslips spreads, | |
| And eglantine beneath the shades; | 10 |
| Violets blue befringe each fountain, | |
| Woodbines lace each steepy mountain; | |
| Hyacinths their sweets diffuse, | |
| And the rose its blush renews; | |
| With the rest of Flora’s train, | 15 |
| Decking lowly dale or plain. | |
| |
| Through creation’s range, sweet May! | |
| Nature’s children own thy sway— | |
| Whether in the crystal flood, | |
| Amorous, sport the finny brood; | 20 |
| Or the feather’d tribes declare, | |
| That they breathe thy genial air, | |
| While they warble in each grove | |
| Sweetest notes of artless love; | |
| Or their wound the beasts proclaim, | 25 |
| Smitten with a fiercer flame; | |
| Or the passions higher rise, | |
| Sparing none beneath the skies, | |
| But swaying soft the human mind | |
| With feelings of ecstatic kind— | 30 |
| Through wide creation’s range, sweet May! | |
| All nature’s children own thy sway. | |
| |
| Oft will I, (e’er Phosphor’s light | |
| Quits the glimmering skirts of night) | |
| Meet thee in the clover field, | 35 |
| Where thy beauties thou shalt yield | |
| To my fancy, quick and warm, | |
| Listening to the dawn’s alarm, | |
| Sounded loud by Chanticleer, | |
| In peals that sharply pierce the ear. | 40 |
| And, as Sol his flaming car | |
| Urges up the vaulted air, | |
| Shunning quick the scorching ray, | |
| I will to some covert stray, | |
| Coolly bowers or latent dells, | 45 |
| Where light-footed silence dwells, | |
| And whispers to my heaven-born dream, | |
| Fair Schuylkill, by thy winding stream! | |
| There I ’ll devote full many an hour, | |
| To the still-finger’d Morphean power, | 50 |
| And entertain my thirsty soul | |
| With draughts from Fancy’s fairy bowl; | |
| Or mount her orb of varied hue, | |
| And scenes of heaven and earth review. | |
| |
| Nor in milder eve’s decline, | 55 |
| As the sun forgets to shine, | |
| And sloping down the ethereal plain, | |
| Plunges in the western main, | |
| Will I forbear due strain to pay | |
| To the song-inspiring May; | 60 |
| But as Hesper ’gins to move | |
| Round the radiant court of Jove, | |
| (Leading through the azure sky | |
| All the starry progeny, | |
| Emitting prone their silver light, | 65 |
| To re-illume the shades of night) | |
| Then, the dewy lawn along, | |
| I ’ll carol forth my grateful song, | |
| Viewing with transported eye | |
| The blazing orbs that roll on high, | 70 |
| Beaming lustre, bright and clear, | |
| O’er the glowing hemisphere. | |
| Thus from the early blushing morn, | |
| Till the dappled eve’s return, | |
| Will I, in free unlabor’d lay, | 75 |
| Sweetly sing the charming May! | |
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