May Day Festivities--May-pole--Morris-dancers--The Book of Sports--Bowling--Beating the Bounds--George Herbert's description of a Country Parson. The spring has dawned with all its brightness and beauty; the nightingale's song is heard, and all nature seems to rejoice in the sweet spring-time. Our forefathers delighted, too, in the advent of the bright month of May, which the old poets used to compare to a maiden clothed in sunshine dancing to the music of birds and brooks; and May Day was the great rural festival of the year. Long before the break of day, men and women, old and young, of all classes, used to assemble and hurry away to the woods and groves to gather the blooming hawthorn and spring flowers, and laden with their spoils returned when the sun rose, with merry shouts and horn-blowings, and adorned every door and window in the village. The poet Herrick sings of this pleasant beginning to the day's festivities. Addressing a maiden named Corinna, he says-- "Come, my Corinna, come, and coming mark How each field turns a street, and each street a park, Made green and trimmed with trees; see how Devotion gives each house a bough Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this An ark, a tabernacle is Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove." The men blew cow-horns to usher in the spring, and the maids carried garlands to hang them in the churches; while at Oxford the choristers of Magdalen College assemble at the top of the tower at early dawn, and sing hymns of thankfulness because spring has come again. This pleasing custom is still observed every year on the first of May. But let us away to the village green, where the May-pole is being adorned with a few finishing touches, and is covered with flowers and ribbons. It has been carried here by twenty or thirty yoke of oxen, their horns decorated with sweet flowers, and then, with shouts and laughter, and with song, the young men raise the massive pole with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, and the rustic feast and dance begin. "The May-pole is up, Now give me the cup, I'll drink to the garlands around it; But first unto those Whose hands did compose The glory of flowers that crown'd it."[9]