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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  May

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

May

By William Barnes (1801–1886)

COME out o’ door, ’tis Spring! ’tis May!

The trees be green, the vields be gay;

The weather’s warm, the winter blast,

Wi’ all his traïn o’ clouds, is past;

The zun do rise while vo’k do sleep,

To teäke a higher daily zweep,

Wi’ cloudless feäce a-flingèn down

His sparklèn light upon the groun’.

The aïr’s a-streamèn soft,—come drow

The winder open; let it blow

In drough the house, where vire, an’ door

A-shut, kept out the cwold avore.

Come, let the vew dull embers die,

An’ come below the open sky;

An’ wear your best, vor fear the groun’

In colors gäy mid sheäme your gown:

An’ goo an’ rig wi’ me a mile

Or two up over geäte an’ stile,

Drough zunny parrocks that do lead,

Wi’ crooked hedges, to the meäd,

Where elems high, in steätely ranks,

Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks,

An’ birds do twitter vrom the spräy

O’ bushes deck’d wi’ snow-white mäy;

An’ gil’ cups, wi’ the deäisy bed,

Be under ev’ry step you tread.

We’ll wind up roun’ the hill, an’ look

All down the thickly timber’d nook,

Out where the squier’s house do show

His gray-walled peaks up drough the row

O’ sheädy elems, where the rock

Do build her nest; an’ where the brook

Do creep along the meäds, an’ lie

To catch the brightness o’ the sky;

An’ cows, in water to theïr knees,

Do stan’ a-whiskèn off the vlees.

Mother o’ blossoms, and ov all

That’s feäir a-vield vrom Spring till Fall,

The gookoo over white-weäv’d seas

Do come to zing in thy green trees,

An’ buttervlees, in giddy flight,

Do gleäm the mwost by thy gäy light.

Oh! when, at last, my fleshly eyes

Shall shut upon the vields an’ skies,

Mid zummer’s zunny days be gone,

An’ winter’s clouds be comèn on:

Nor mid I draw upon the e’th,

O’ thy sweet aïr my leätest breath;

Alassen I mid want to stäy

Behine’ for thee, O flow’ry May!