The Portland daily press., 1879-05-03
Y0rick's Drawer

w "seoSACu OuCc were pcOple 10 Ln6 May
Pole and the games played round it that the
cutting down OF the poles gave occasion for
| serious complaint against Puritan rule. In
deed "the tall May y-Pole that once o'erlooked
the Strand' was put up at the Restoration
as sign of the triumph ofroyalty and the re.
turn of gaiety to the nation. 1t was stand
ing as late as Queen Anne's time. Not far
fiom it, near st. Paups, was a fir pole forty
feet high, tabled to be the jousting staff Of
Gerard the Giant. The colors of both these
poles were black and yellow, arranged some.
| thing like the bands on barber's sign.
Americans may be interested to know that
| In the Halliwell folio edition of Shakespeare
the picture of May-Pole is given which is
| colored red, white and blue. In Chambers
Book of Days can be found a full description
of ii and Of other famous poles of the kind.
The May Pole has greatly interested the
comparative mythologists. Some think it a
remnant OF Draid rites, some a symbol
of Phallic worship, and others offer more
fanciful interpretations. Apparently all
these theories are but vague conjectures.
| Of course the sun-myth men have an ex-
PLANTATION for it as they have for everything
else on which their deity looks down. But
the chief interest that attaches to the May.
Pole comes from its association with the
rural life Of England and with the sports
which we hold in high esteem as we do many
other things, merely because we have out
| grown them.
Though the May Pole has rotted down the
day is still observed in England, curiously
enough, by the chimney sweeps of London.
They make Of it festival. 1t is strange no
| ingenious scholar traces tbe observance back
to the days of devl-worship and the fear of
darkness. In the beginning of the century
milk-maids and dairy-women led out white
COW on the First of May, and crowned it
with flowers. That was certainly pleas
aDter custom than the chimney-sweep fest-
val and offers immense opportunities to the
comparative mythologists to talk of the pas
tora pursuits of the ancient Aryans, of the
sacred beast of India, of Isis, OF the
Here-idols found at Mycena, and of the Scan
dinavian Audhumbla. 1t is a pity that a
custom which affords so much harmless
amusement to scholars should be suffered to
fall into desuetude. But England has aban-
doned all her May-Pole observances and
gone unreservedly into trade. In Scotland,
however, little maids go out even now in the
early hours OF the First of May and wash
their faces with dew. On the continent, in
many secluded German and Swiss hamlets,
the old customs prevail. In America We OBJ.
serve the day by going into the woods and
catching cold,-a sacrifice perhaps to the
frost.demons that torment US half the year.
|. The May Queen is no longer crowned in
England. Her only subjects now are the
| poets. The most illustrious of living singers
has, in words we all remember, sung hel
praises. May is famous month with the
minstrels. Some of US have read that ir
Provence poetic tournaments were held or
May-Day, Jeur FIoraur, they called them,
where instead of the modest little flower o
our woods golden rose was offered as prize
In Scotland the Abbot of Unreas
on held his consistory and pleased bis
monks by chanting rbald parodies on sacred
hymns. In England. for long time, the lie
gends of the greenwood and the joyousnes
of Spring were commemorated by Robil
Hood games and the singing of ballads abo1
Maid Marian. The Maid was a beautiful
girl theI and her life love-story. Th
coarser spirit of later age has made her
trollop. The poets, true to the traditions o
their craft, still sing of May and its delights,
even in this country where the month i
but a pale prophecy of the English May
Half the newspapers in the land have thi
year May-songs and verses about its Queen
But the ''singers" of this ''empty day" wan
the sincerity and fail to catch the joyous ton
OF their elders. Read any of the May poem
published this week, and then read Herrick'
"Going a-Maying," which Iser thoughtfull
drops into the Drawer:
''Rise and put on yonr foliage and be seen
To come forth like the spring ime, fresh and green
| And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair
Fear not, the leaves will strew
| Gems in abundance upon you;
Besides the childhood of the day has Kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls wept.
Come aud receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-l LOCKS of the night,
| And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself. or else stands still
Til you come 1or'h wash dress, be brief in praying
Few beads are best when once we 60 a-May ing"
If we wish to 90 back to the fountain, an
drink of the "well Of English undefyled'' W
should read the Court OF Love, the Rom anc
of the Rose done into English by Chaucel
aud the Assembly of Foues.
The gentle worship of the May Queer
like many other old customs, has lasted long
er here than in the mother country. Yoric
remembers crowning two. One was Low
browed girl, with dusky bloom in ht
cheeks, to whom the evergreen wreat
studded with the pink-white blossoms WI
} anything but becoming. Yorick thought b,
more sensible than the rest of the girls, an
having persuaded himself that he was O
enough to cast aside the mere puerile. savas
delight in beauty, gave her his sutfrages. Sh
was certainly very bright, brilliant he migl
call her to-day:
''sbe was pretty to walk with,
And witty to talk WITH
And pleasant, too, TO think on"
, Then she was as black and impish as an ell
, Now she is beautiful woman. With tt
other May Queen he was wildly, madly, d
liriously in love. He was nine years old the
and his passion had all the innocence and fe
vor of child's good night prayer. She vi
"scarce five feet one" and had eyes as blt
as June sky, and face like painting Q
, porcelain. Gone are the May Queens OF Of
youth! Eheu fugaces labuntur annI
There is something very attractive
Yorck about Christian Of the good o
Q fighting sort, one who does not boast whe
f he girds on his harness, and does rejoi'
> when he puts it off: one who is ever ready
:. 90 forth to the fight against evil; who is nj
disputatious, who avoids occasion for quarre
but who believes his right arm was give
: him to make use of against the enemies
the Lord. One of these, a muscular Chri
tan in whom Charles Kingsley would ha,
delighted, was at the Methodist Conferen,
last week. He is an elder in the Methodi
Church, a tall, brawny, dark-eyed man,