May-Day

BRIAN
Late — you are late. And where have you been?
MENZIES
I have been in the woods and the lanes.
BRIAN
And what have you heard, and what have you
seen
And what in your fancy reigns?
MENZIES
I have heard the ring-dove coo,
And the cuckoo toll his bell;
I have seen the shrieking jay flash blue
Athwart a wooded dell.
I have heard the chattering streamlet run
In haste to reach the sea;
I have watched the golden bee,
Cupid and Hymen in one,
Morn, noon, and afternoon.
Fulfil the tingling hours
With the murmuring sound of his bridal tune
As he married the waiting flowers.
The long, long hedgerows white with May
Bordered the rustling lanes;
And a fragrant wind blew all the day.
BRIAN
But what in your fancy reigns?
MENZIES
There reigned, and is regnant still,
A memory, long forgot.
Of a lowland town, a lowland hill.
And a lowland woman's lot.
She shed her tears, and dreamed her dreams,
And wore her sad wan smiles.
Where a wide water winds and gleams
Among its links and isles.
Rock-perched a royal borough towers
High over the highest trees.
With crumbling walls and faded bowers
And mouldering palaces.
Near by a hill its dark crest lifts
Sheer from the river's bank.
And cloudy shadow broods and shifts
About its russet flank.
The land is stained with purple dyes
Of high-romantic scenes;
The air still quivers with the sighs
Of tragic kings and queens;
The very ploughman holds his plough
As proudly as a lance;
The milkmaid bears a dreamy brow,
Inheriting romance.
Even in my father's time a crew
Of lads and lasses gay
Would dip their faces in the dew
Upon the first of May.
This joyful mood might not withstand
The age's growing care,
When railways hacked and scored the land,
And wires engraved the air.
One woman only, all forlorn.
While twenty summers flew,
Still climbed the hill each May-day morn
Her beauty to renew!
What love, what loss, what hope was hers
No man or maid could tell.
But all the loyal lowlanders
Esteemed her custom well.
Dressed in a hat with broken plume,
A cape, and worn black frock.
Before the dawn she left her room,
And climbed by scar and rock.
And so to-day by lane and burn,
By scented hedge and shaw,
At many a pause and sudden turn
Her wistful face I saw.
And once as in a waking dream
The whole fair lowland shone —
The palaced rock, the hill, the stream,
The softly coming dawn:
And she with sobs and murmured cries
To earth's green bosom laid
Her withered cheek, while from her eyes
Hot dew on cold dew strayed.
BRIAN
What was her end?
MENZIES
Oh, exquisite!
Winter and Spring she lay
Bedridden in a palsy fit;
But on the first of May,
When the lark waked the sun, she too
Arose, and in a trance
Went forth to bathe her face in dew,
The martyr of romance.
They found her on the green hill-side
At home, and sleeping fast
Her endless sleep, Death's pallid bride.
Most beautiful at last.
'Remember us poor Mayers all,
'And thus we do begin
'To lead our lives in righteousness
'Or else we die in sin.
'I have been rambling all this night,
'And almost all this day,
'And now returned back again
'I bring you a branch of May!
BRIAN
An antique minstrel! Hark!
MENZIES
It is Basil: I know his note.
MENZIES
Have you been where the night-jar haunts the
dark
In outland ways remote?
BASIL
I have been with the nightingale:
I have learned his song so sweet:
I sang it aloud by wood and dale,
And under my breath in the street.
If the words would only flow —
MENZIES
Oh, sing it now!
BASIL
No, no!
But it went like this, I think: —
'Where the purple hyacinths grew,
'And the campions white and pink,
'The jewelled butterflies flew
'From jewelled cups to drink;
'And some were violet-eyed,
'Some blue, some rosy-red,
'Gold-plumed, or damask-dyed,
'Earth-born and heaven-bred;
'And every chalice drooped and sighed
'When the splendid revellers fled;
'But never a flower its cup denied
'Though the wine of life was shed.
'The lark from the top of heaven raved
'Of the sunshine sweet and old;
'And the whispering branches dipped and
laved
'In the light; and waste and wold
'Took heart and shone; and the buttercups
paved
'The emerald meads with gold.
'Now in the forest is night;
'The flowers have gone to sleep;
'But the stars have opened their eyes of light
'Under the brows of heaven deep;
'And gentle shadows cross my sight,
'And murmurs rustle and creep;
'And the very darkness is fresh and bright
'With the tears the sweet dews weep.
'The wind steals down the lawns
'With a whisper of ecstasy,
'Of moonlight nights and rosy dawns,
'And a nest in a hawthorn tree,
'Of the little mate for whom I wait,
'Flying across the sea,
'Through storm and night as sure as fate,
'Swift-winged with love for me.'
MENZIES
And so you brought home the May
With the nightingale's song in your ears.
BASIL
And sad eyes flashed for a moment gay,
Or welled with happy tears,
When they saw my branch and remembered the
day,
And forgot the tedious years.
And I thought as I tuned my rhyme,
And waved the branch in my hand,
Of the famous olden time
When a Maypole stood in the Strand.
BRIAN
Let the Golden Days return!
MENZIES
And let the May-Queen reign!
BASIL
When smokeless fires burn,
And London is born again!