Hopes last longer than their disappointments.
An abandoned hope can haunt its house for years,
Longing to breathe life into its spirit,
Longing for the salience of its youth.
O phantom hopes, do not despair! For someone
Will soon take up the gauntlet of your dreams,
Embrace you as the child of their passion,
Embody you in the flesh of their desire.
Nor will a kind and just hope ever die.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
– Andrew Marvell, Thoughts in a Garden
Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls because the spirit was said to be carried in one’s breath.
–Eve Glicksman
“Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower’s scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Prithee, smite the poet in the eye when he would sing to you praises of the month
of May. It is a month presided over by the spirits of mischief and madness. Pixies
and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods: Puck and his train of midgets are
busy in town and country.
In May, nature holds up at us a chiding finger, bidding us remember that we are
not gods, but over-conceited members of her own great family. She reminds us
that we are brothers to the chowder-doomed clam and the donkey; lineal scions
of the pansy and the chimpanzee, and but cousins-german to the cooing doves,
the quacking ducks and the housemaids and policemen in the parks.
– O’ Henry, The Month of May
“The new earth quickens as you rise.
The May Queen is waiting.
Feel the pulsing ground call you to journey,
To know the depths of your desire.
The May Queen is waiting.
Moving through the night, the bright moon’s flight.
In green and silver on the plain.
She waits for you to return again.
Do not keep Her waiting.
Her temper stings if you refuse to taste Her honey.
Surrender as enchantment brings
The first light of dawning.
Move with Her in sacred dance, through fear to feeling.
Bringing ecstasy to those who dare.
Living earth is breathing.
Loving through the night in the bright moonlight,
As seedlings open with the rain.
She’ll long for you to return again.
Do not keep Her waiting.”
– Ruth Barren, The May Queen is Waiting