3-052-631 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Months: May, 1880. 'The "merry month of May," upon which the poets have lavished their tenderest lays, has ever been regarded as the loveliest and sweetest time of all the year - the flowery month when, say the lyrists, there should be naught but laughter, mirth, and pleasure. Of course they breathe not a word about the blights that unhappily sometimes occur in May, though one of them gently reminds us that she is the offspring of April - that arch-coquette who, "with showers and sunshine in her fickle eyes," so often deceives us with smiles and blushes, which are but a thin disguise of "the blast that riots on the spring's increase." In most years, however, it is only in her childhood that May resembles April. But be the air as soft and balmy as the poets say, or be it laden with the heritage of April's wanton tears, May has always a fresh, green loveliness about her that fills our souls with gladness. There is verdure everywhere: on the river-banks, the lane- sides, the meadows, the young corn-fields, the hedgerows, and - most delightful of all - the trees. And flowers, too, are everywhere lifting their dewy buds and bells'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.