HYMN TO MAY. Nunc formosissimus Annus. Virgil. The Argument. Subject proposed. Invocation of May. Description of her: ber operations on Nature. Bounty recommended in particular at this season. Vernal apostrophe. Love the ruling passion in May. The celebration of Venus her birthday in this month. Rural retirement in spring. Conclusion. ETHEREAL daughter of the lusty Spring I pant, too emulous, to flow in Spenser's strain. Say, mild Aurora of the blooming year, For which the nations pine, and Earth's fair children die? Where Leda's twins*, forth from their diamond tower, Alternate, o'er the Night their beams divide; From Winter rage, thou choosest to abide. * Castor and Pollux. 5 Bless'd residence! for there, as poets tell, (For ever spread, ye laurels green and new!) They bathe their horses in the learned flood, With nectar nurtured, and involved in flowers: • The Gemini are supposed to preside over learned men. See Pontanus, in his beautiful poem called Urania. Lib. 2. De Gemini. + Surely, certainly. Ibid. Rhedicyna, Oxford. Jupiter deceived Leda in the shape of a swan, as she was bathing herself in the river Eurotas. || Nor. § Garlands. By the youths' plainings stealing on the air (For youths will plain, though yielding be the fair), Hither, to bless the maidens and the youths, re pair. With dew bespangled, by the hawthorn buds, Delight of earth and heaven, O blessed May! From heaven descend to earth: on earth vouchsafe to stay. She comes!-a silken camus †, emerald green, Her mantle proud to swell, and wanton with her hair. Her hair (but rather threads of light it seems), Or, curling round her waist, disparts its wavy gold. Young circling roses, blushing, round them throw * Songs. + A light gown. Flourished with a needle. The humid radiance beaming from her eyes On Zephyr's wing the laughing goddess view, The ravages of Winter to repair. She gives her naked bosom to the gales, All as the phoenix, in Arabian skies, So round this phoenix of the gaudy year *Pliny tells us, Lib. 11, that the phoenix is about the bigness of an eagle; the feathers round the neck shining like gold; the body of a purple colour; the tail blue, with feathers resembling roses. See Clandian's fine Poem on that subject, and Marcellus Donatus, who has a short dissertation on the phoenix in his Observations on Tacitus. Annal. Lib. 6. Wesley on Job, and Sir Tho. Brown's Vulgar Errors. VOL. III. I Narcissus fair, in snowy velvet gown'd; He who undazed || can wander o'er her face, May gain upon the solar blaze at noon;— What more than female sweetness, and a grace Peculiar! save, Ianthe, thine alone, Ineffable effusion of the day! So very much the same that lovers say, So far as doth the harbinger of Day Above all other nymphs Ianthe bears the meed tt. A beautiful youth who, beholding his face in a fountain, fell in love with himself, and pining away was changed into a flower which bears his name. See Ovid. Metamorph. Lib. 3. + Beloved, and turned into a flower, by Apollo. See the Story in Ovid. Met. Lib. 10. There is likewise a curious dialogue in Lucian betwixt Mercury and Apollo on this subject. Servius, in his Notes on Virgil's second Bucolic, takes the Hyacinth to be the Vaccinium of the Latins, bearing some similitude with the name. Formerly: long ago. § See Tasso's Il Goffredo, Canto 16. Brightness, shining. || Undazzled. ** Beanty. tt. Prize. |