MAY

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in the embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's wildest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. —John Keats.

Such a starved bank of moss Till that May morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born. —Robert Browning.