Mayday Mourning Poem by C Richard Miles

Mourn for the May whose ribboned fripperies once, fluttering,
Fostered cheerful colour on each vernal village green.
Though brazen buddleias dash some dour dolour from the guttering,
They still raise sad rejoinders to our ugly, urban scene.

Then shone the season of gay garland and rich revelry;
Then was the maypole’s hour to overlook glad scenes.
Economy’s gloom galls, with lustful lucre’s practised devilry
To festoon struggling masses with soulless greys, not greens.

Weep for the wasting of May’s mirthful frolics and festivities;
Lament the loss of flowery freshness, which once accompanied morn,
For now, in crowded cities, faithless fashions rise, proclivities
Which draw us down, relentlessly, to uninspiring dawn.

Gone is the playfulness of jesting jollity and merriment;
Gone is the gaiety and lost the laughing Morris dance.
Born of dire necessity’s remorseless loss of innocence,
Mundane matters magnify and tender joy no chance.

Cry for the countryside, where dancing feet tripped, twinkling,
Intertwining in complexity under unpolluted skies,
Whilst, in our towns, inhabitants sore shudder with the inkling
That drudgery may dominate as our determination dies.

Lost is the May Queen’s brightness, complementing greenery;
Lost is the cheerfulness, which graced once-tranquil realms,
Replaced by noxious, headlong rush to vandalise our scenery
With tower-block monstrosities whose dullness overwhelms.

Hark to the echoing of Arcadian, green tranquillity.
Recall the charm of simpler, homely heydays from the past.
Let not fatiguing greyness rise to obliterate our ability
To let atavistic, re-born hope spring fresh Maydays that last.