May Days

We read of the pleasant old custoin of choosing a May queen, and dancing around the May-pole, out-of-doors, and sornetimes we wish we lived in a cliinate where such things can be done. But lay-day, as you children know, is often i diiy of disappointment - fog, and rain, and sometinies snow, instead of sunshine uid flowers. We suspect that it is not always a pleasant day even in merry England; for Hood writes a poem about spring, beginning: 'Come, gentío Spring! ethereal mildness, come! O Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How oouldst thou thus poor human nature hum ? There's J?o such stxixon l How it often is with us, we are rerainded in the first couplet of Mrs. Üsgood's "MayinNewEnglaad": Can this be May ? Can this be May 7 We have not f ounü a flower to-day ! But we camiot help believing in May, and cvery year we hope that she will behavo botter the next time she comes. Tor she doos make us regret her departure sometimes. This is the way the regret has been written: Spring is growing óp ; Ir not it a píty 1 She was such a little thing, And so vcry protty ! Snmmer is extremely grand ; Wo imwt pay hor duty- (lint it is to little Suriug That Bhe owes her beauty). ■ Spring ia growing up, Lieaving ub bo lonely ! In the place of little Spring Wé have Simimcr only. Sunnnor, with her lofty air And her statcly jiaces, In the place of little Spring, With her cliiklish graecs. -Si. Xie-Jiolan fnr ilny.