Tag: May Day

Happy May Day

Out of winter comes spring, and out of darkness comes light.

Happy May Day, everyone! I definitely feel like I need to come out of the darkness. I’ve decided to share a lovely spring poem by Wordsworth, which is both sweet and melancholy and seems fitting right now. Of course, don’t forget my alma mater’s May Day tradition, so eloquently expressed by our beloved Professor Bennett Lamond, who sadly passed away last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjjBgtvrQNY

Lines Written in Early Spring
by William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

When walls between worlds grow thin

Happy May Day and happy Beltane! I’m not sure how it got to be May already, but here we are. I was thinking about the belief that Beltane is one of the times of the year when the walls between the human world and the faerie world grow thin, making it easier to pass from one to the other. I’ve been writing about this in Thief of Destiny, which has all kinds of interesting stuff about the faery realm and magic and my main character’s connection to both of those things.

And for my fellow Washington College alumni, May Day probably brings back memories. The college has a tradition of students running around naked on campus on May Day. Apparently it has its own page in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day_%28Washington_College%29. I feel a bit sad reading that there isn’t as much nakedness as there used to be! There’s also a video of my favorite English professor describing how he inadvertently started the tradition in the 60s (of course it was the 60s!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjjBgtvrQNY

So if you get a hankering to run around naked and read poetry today, here’s a poem to include. I’m pretty sure this was on my May Day list one year. I’ve posted it before, but it’s a favorite.

Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
(from The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.