Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!!  Get out the May Pole and dance!  It's a beautiful Spring day outside, and I can't call the Portuguese Consulate because it's another Portuguese holiday!  (They lucked out again today!) 

Have you ever had a May Pole, or took part in the celebration of one?  I had totally forgotten about the one I had for one my birthdays until an old classmate of mine mentioned it at my high school reunion a few years back.  Strangley, the memory of dancing around the "May Pole" (which was really a tetherball pole without the ball) in my backyard, left a "beautiful" lasting impression.  Who would have known?  Of course, May Pole represents more than just flowers but fertility--just ask Cin what symbol the May Pole represents.  (HA HA HA) 

Anyways, I found some poems for the day at:  http://www.infoplease.com/spot/springquotes1.html

Thought I would share..enjoy!

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. Algernon Charles Swinburne  (1837–1909) Atalanta in Calydon (1865)
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough. A.E. Housman (1859–1936) A Shropshire Lad (1896)
The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, andto bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May. Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471) Le Morte d'Arthur (1485)
	A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) No. 1333 (c.1875)
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers: Of April, May, of June, and July flowers. I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. Robert Herrick (1591–1674) Hesperides (1648)
	in Just— spring when the world is mud— luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) Chansons Innocentes (1923)
The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March. Robert Frost (1874–1963) Two Tramps in MudTime (1936)
O! how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day! William Shakespeare (1564–1616) The Two Gentlemen of Verona	April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) The Waste Land (1922)
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing. Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! Thomas Nashe (1567–1601) Summer's Last Will and Testament (1600)
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling. Walt Whitman (1819–1892) Leaves of Grass (1855; 1891–92)	The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) Fisherman's Luck (1899)
Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England, Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England, Lilac in me because I am New England. Amy Lowell (1874–1925) Lilacs
Sweet April showers Do spring May flowers. Thomas Tusser (1524?–1580) A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry (1557)	In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Alfred, Lord Tennyson  (1809–1892) Locksley Hall (1842)