Welcome one and all to the forty eighth volume of the Areopagus. May is withering fast and June blooms suddenly ahead. So we give our introduction to a mysterious and melancholy little poem called May, written by the great Christina Rossetti:
I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.
A splendid meditation on the passing of the month of May, on the passing of something we cannot quite place or name, but which we surely know is there. Hark — 'tis not yet past! There is time yet in May for another instalment of the Areopagus and another seven short lessons. We begin...
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