y celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender,"

Thilke mery moneth of May
When love-lads masken in fresh aray,

when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods
with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds."

Sicker[043] this morowe, no longer agoe,
I saw a shole of shepeardes outgoe
With singing and shouting and iolly chere:
Before them yode[044] a lustre tabrere,[045]
That to the many a hornepype playd
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see those folks make such iovysaunce,
Made my heart after the pype to daunce.
Tho[046] to the greene wood they speeden hem all
To fetchen home May with their musicall;
And home they bringen in a royall throne
Crowned as king; and his queene attone[047]
Was LADY FLORA.

_Spenser_.

This is the season when the birds seem almost intoxicated with delight
at the departure of the dismal and cold and cloudy days of winter and
the return of the warm sun. The music of these little May musicians
seems as fresh as the fragrance of the flowers. The Skylark is the
prince of British Singing-birds--the leader of their cheerful band.

LINES TO A SKYLARK.

Wanderer through the wilds of air!
Freely as an angel fair
Thou dost leave the solid earth,
Man is bound to from his birth
Scarce a cubit from the grass
Springs the foot of lightest lass--
_Thou_ upon a cloud can'st leap,
And o'er broadest rivers sweep,
Climb up heaven's steepest height,
Fluttering, twinkling, in the light,
Soaring, singing, till, sweet bird,
Thou art neither seen nor heard,
Lost in azure fields afar
Like a distance hidden star,
That alone for angels bright
Breathes its music, sheds its light

Warbler of the morning's mirth!
When the gray mists rise from earth,
And the round dews on each spray
Glitter in the golden ray,
And thy wild notes, sweet though high,
Fill the wide cerulean, sky,
Is there human heart or brain
Can resist thy merry strain?

But not always soaring high,
Making man up turn his eye
Just to learn what shape of love,
Raineth music from above,--
All the sunny cloudlets fair
Floating on the azure air,
All the glories of the sky
Thou leavest unreluctantly,
Silently with happy breast
To drop into thy lowly nest.

Though the frame of man must be
Bo