The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-24
QUEEN GATHERINGS MAYING.
BY FRED MYRON COLBY.

May morning in n1erry England in the
year of our Lord 1915 was bright and
beautiful. After the damp and sodden
winter, what spring it was! What a
new bright world had dawned! How
green and fair was bonny England! All
the birds had come back and were in full
song; the trees were bursting into leaf,
the fields were greener than ever seemed
fields before; every orchard and garden
was rosy and purple with apple blossoms
and lilacs; hedgerowe were snowy with
white thorn, and along every bank and
lane, in every copse and meadow, there
was a prodigal outblooming of those
dainty spring flowers Of Chaucer and
Shakespeare-da primroses, violets
and daffodils.
There was no work going on in old En-
gland on that bright morning, or staying
in doors if it could be helped. Few were
the lads and few the lasses who over
slept themselves on the first of the merry
month of May. Long ere dawn the young
crowds had sought mead and woodland
to cut poles and wreathe flowers. 1t saw
was everybody's holiday, looked forward
to and longed for; and not scullery
maid or apprentice in London town
would have missed keeping the day, any
more than the country boys and girls in
the small hamlets. Many meadow then
lay fair and green beyond the village of
Charing and beyond the stately Abbey
of Westminster that then stood embow-
cred by tall trees planted by the Confess
sor; many a wood lay dark in the star
light, along the slopes rising above the
dark Strand, and on either side OF the
great road into Kent; flutes and horns
sounded far and near through the green
places, and laughter and song and the
crash of falling boughs.
As the eastern sky frightened with the
dawn, fresh young faces stopped down to
battle in the May dew. All along the
hedge-rows, fragrant with blossoms,
stood patient oxen waiting till the gay
spoilers of May came forth from the
woods with their lusty poles, followed by
girls with lapsful of flowers which they
had caught asleep. Then the poles wreath
ed with nosegays were drawn by the long
yokes of oxen, their horns hung with
chaplets, back to the city. By the time
the sun was up all the city gates were
crowded with the gay PROFESSIONS, boys
bearing peeled willow wands twined with
cowslips leading the van, and through
the lively din of horns and flutes swelled
the voices of the choral train singing
some old Saxon stave, precursor of the
later song
"we have brought the summer home"
And all through the day there was
tumbling and dancing around the May
pole, masks and mumneries, and sport
and pastime everywhere. Nor was it
among the lower classes alone that May
day found its patrons. Often in the
good old days before the Tudors reigned
kings and barons had gone forth May
ing and bluff King HAL" as his sub
iects had learned to call him, loving mer-
rymaking and pageantry as he did the
breath OF heaven, was not one to let the
day go by without observation.
On this May day the whole court
were going out to picnic in gypsy fashion
on a neighborIng eminence called Shoot
er's Hill. SO while milkmaids and
'prentices were setting up May poles and
GROWING door posts with garlands, if we
had been at the palace of Greenwich
Court we should have seen lords and
ladies' dressed in sylvan garbs, and paw
ing horses saddled and bridled and a
general hurry and hustle. 1t was like a
picture RS they rode out Of the court
yard, that gallant train Of knights and
danes, dressed in their gayest suits, and
their prancing horses caparisoned as for a
tournament.
At the head of the eavalcade rode
the merry young king and his queen,
Catherine of Arragon, daughter of that
Ferdinand and Isabella, who helped Co