Song of the Day - 1st May

It is the 1st of May - the sun is shining, the air is warm. May Day Bank Holiday may not be until Monday but today is May-Day nonetheless.

May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere's Spring equinox and Midsummer solstice. The earliest known May celebrations appeared with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, held from 27 April to 3 May during the Roman Republic era, and the Maiouma or Maiuma, a festival celebrating Dionysus and Aphrodite held every three years during the month of May.

The best known modern May Day traditions, observed both in Europe and North America, include dancing around the maypole and crowning the Queen of May.

The poem for today's Song of the Day is called May-Day by English poet John Clare. From Helpston in rural Northamptonshire, John Clare was born in 1793. He is now regarded as the most important poet of the natural world from Britain. He wrote many poems, prose and letters about love, sex, corruption and politics, environmental and social change, poverty and folk life. Even in his 'madness', his talents were not diminished. Ronald Blythe, past President of the Clare Society, saw Clare as "... England's most articulate village voice". Clare died, aged 71, in 1864.

This poem, published in The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems in 1821, starts joyously, telling of all the preparations for the May Day celebrations, but then takes a tragic note when the narrator recounts how they can no longer enjoy May Day since their beloved Colin died.

May-Day

By John Clare

Now happy swains review the plains,

And hail the first of May;

Now linnets sing to welcome spring,

And every soul is gay.

Hob, joyful soul, high rears the pole,

With wild-flower wreaths entwin'd;

Then tiptoe round the maidens bound,

All sorrow lags behind.

Branches of thorn their doors adorn,

With every flowret lin'd

That earliest spring essays to bring,

Or searching maids can find.

All swains resort to join the sport,

E'en age will not disdain,

But oft will throng to hear the song,

And view the jocund train.

I often too had us'd to go,

The rural mirth to share,

But what, alas l time brought to pass,

Soon made me absent there.

My Colin died the village pride,

O hapless misery!

Then sports adieu, with him they flew,

For he was all to me.

And May no more shall e'er restore

To me those joys again,

There's no relief but urging grief,

For memory wakens pain.

To think how he, so dear to me,

Had us'd to join the play;

And O so dear such pleasures were,

He gloried in the day.

But now, sad scene, he's left the green,

And Lubin here to mourn:

Then flowers may spring, and birds may sing,

And May-day may return;

But never more can they restore

Their rural sports to me--

No, no, adieu! with him they flew,

For he was all to me.