May-Day Morn. Poem by William Billington

THE morning sun was hid behind the mountains,
A sea of light came surging up the skies,
A purple pall of mist obscured the fountains,
And brooks, and valleys;-dipped in rainbow dyes,
Aurora, slowly over hill and spire,
Did trail her cloudy robes with sweeping flounce of fire.

Like dainty fruit on the unblossomed boughs
The sky-reflecting, crystal dew-globes hung,
The wanton Winds sung mystic metres, whose
Deep lore of love from dreams of beauty sprung,
While May, led by the golden-wingëd Hours,
From Paradise did come to crown the Earth with flowers.

The cold Earth, kindled by her amorous kiss,
Confessed her rapture in a blush of blooms,
Her very insect tribes felt angels' bliss
And walked the wind-Love lent them starry plumes,
While bird and beast felt music-pulses play
Within their breasts a tune-'twas 'Welcome lovely May!'

Green buds burst through the willows' scaly rind,
As stars peer through the curtains of the dark;
Sun-singëd Snowdrops trembled in the wind,
Like fainting birds of passage; 'neath the bark,
The oaks' sap-fountains flung their jets on high
To flash out in green leaves, and screen them from the sky.

The slumberous Mountains waved their load of trees,
As if Hyperion, piercing through their dark
And stony hearts, to action like the Seas
Had roused his Titan-brothers,-you might mark
A falcon from their midst soar to the sky,
Like some swift herald sent Jove's thunder to defy?

The Sea looked up to Heaven above, and smiled,
As angels smile, with calm and earnest grace,
Though gently roused, or as a rosy child,
Waked by her kiss, smiles in its mother's face;
The brooding Heaven seemed bending east and west,
The green Earth to enfold, within her azure breast!

Such was the radiant dawn of that May-day,
When, on the wood-crowned summit of a hill,
The bard sate listening to the Skylark's lay,
Whose melody the dome of heaven did fill,
While Earth and Air and Ocean seemed to seek
Joy-utterance from his Muse, who thus their thoughts would
speak.