A tisket, a tasket...

here's my sweet May basket...

photo credit link

Happy May Day!  I simply cannot believe that April is already history--this spring is just flying by.  And shame on me--since I took a breather from my blog the last few weeks all those lovely poems I had ready for March and April will just have to patiently wait for next year!  I remember all the sweet May baskets my mother helped me craft in grade school---construction paper cones covered in paper doilies and filled with little goodies, and I have special memories of helping my children fill little paper cups with johnny-jump-ups for their teachers and special neighbors.  Sweet, sweet memories.

Another lovely memory that is always tied up in my mind with May Day was my fascination with the British artist Kate Greenaway.  I loved her illustrations and was so very proud of my pretty spring Kate Greenaway smocked dress.  This picture always makes me want to burst into the Lusty Month of May from Camelot, although admittedly these little girls are a far cry from a more sophisticated Guinevere!

I am the proud owner of one of her illustrated books, and I thought you might like to see a few of her spring drawings, set to some of the verses from one of my favorite Concordians, good old Ralph Waldo.  The full version of Emerson's May Day Poems can be found here (spoiler alert--it is a long poem!)

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring,

With sudden passion languishing,

Maketh all things softly smile,

Painteth pictures mile on mile,

Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths,

Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

 

Girls are peeling the sweet willow,

Poplar white, and Gilead-tree,

And troops of boys

Shouting with whoop and hilloa,

And hip, hip three times three.

The air is full of whistlings bland;

What was that I heard

Out of the hazy land?

 Harp of the wind, or song of bird,

Or clapping of shepherd's hands,

Or vagrant booming of the air,

Voice of a meteor lost in day?

Such tidings of the starry sphere

Can this elastic air convey.

The caged linnet in the Spring

Hearkens for the choral glee,

When his fellows on the wing

Migrate from the Southern Sea;

When trellised grapes their flowers unmask,

And the new-born tendrils twine,

The old wine darkling in the cask

Feels the bloom on the living vine,

And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring:

And so, perchance, in Adam's race,

Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace

Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood,

And wakes the wish in youngest blood

To tread the forfeit Paradise,

And feed once more the exile's eyes;

And ever when the happy child

In May beholds the blooming wild,

And hears in heaven the bluebird sing,

'Onward,' he cries, 'your baskets bring,--

In the next field is air more mild,

And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring.'

 

April cold with dropping rain

Willows and lilacs brings again,

The whistle of returning birds,

And trumpet-lowing of the herds.

The scarlet maple-keys betray

What potent blood hath modest May;

What fiery force the earth renews,

The wealth of forms, the flush of hues;

Joy shed in rosy waves abroad

Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.

Where shall we keep the holiday,

And duly greet the entering May?

Too strait and low our cottage doors,

And all unmeet our carpet floors;

Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall,

Suffice to hold the festival.

Up and away! where haughty woods

Front the liberated floods:

We will climb the broad-backed hills,

Hear the uproar of their joy;

We will mark the leaps and gleams

Of the new-delivered streams,

And the murmuring rivers of sap

Mount in the pipes of the trees,

Giddy with day, to the topmost spire,

Which for a spike of tender green

Bartered its powdery cap;

And the colours of joy in the bird,

And the love in its carol heard,

Frog and lizard in holiday coats,

And turtle brave in his golden spots;

We will hear the tiny roar

Of the insects evermore,

While cheerful cries of crag and plain

Reply to the thunder of river and main.

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring

To-day shall all her dowry bring,

The love of kind, the joy, the grace,

Hymen of element and race,

Knowing well to celebrate

With song and hue and star and state,

With tender light and youthful cheer,

The spousals of the new-born year.

Lo Love's inundation poured

Over space and race abroad!

For thou, O Spring! canst renovate

All that high God did first create.

Be still his arm and architect,

Rebuild the ruin, mend defect;

Chemist to vamp old worlds with new,

Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue,

New-tint the plumage of the birds,

And slough decay from grazing herds,

Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain,

Cleanse the torrent at the fountain,

Purge alpine air by towns defiled,

Bring to fair mother fairer child,

Not less renew the heart and brain,

Scatter the sloth, wash out the stain,

Make the aged eye sun-clear,

To parting soul bring grandeur near.

Under gentle types, my Spring

Masks the might of Nature's king,

An energy that searches thorough

From Chaos to the dawning morrow;

Into all our human plight,

The soul's pilgrimage and flight;

In city or in solitude,

Step by step, lifts bad to good,

Without halting, without rest,

Lifting Better up to Best;

Planting seeds of knowledge pure,

Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure.

Happy May Day!!