Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/119

61 Come, we'll abroad, and let's obay

The proclamation made for May:

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;

But, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying.

Is not this exquisitely beautiful? I know of nothing, on a similar subject, which may bear a comparison with the sweetness, fancy, and delicate elegance of these lines. They are soft and musical enough to have been breathed out in the chime of Lily-bells. The melody of Herrick's true poetry is, to my mind, almost unequalled—Shelly alone rivals him; and, as Shelley's poetry is of a far loftier character, a comparison may not well be drawn between them.

Next to the hawthorn-bloom, the lilac and laburnum contribute most to the adornment of the glad earth at this festive season; and right gaily do they deck her out, with their countless clusters of ameythst and showers of gold.

One might invent a fable, or at least improve one, and represent Jupiter visiting Danæ in the form of a laburnum-tree in bloom, far more gracefully than in a fall of heavy clinking metal; though if the fair ladyes of those classic days loved parties and pin-money as well as modern beauties seem to do, methinks the celestial wooer would have sped but poorly in his courtship; for, verily, and indeed, Plutus is far more in request than the blooming Flora; and the exhibition of a diamond necklace in a close and heated midnight ball-room is a matter of higher importance, and, as they would fain persuade us, productive of more pleasure (though this I will not do them the wrong of believing) than a health-giving ramble in the