he year of our Lord 1052. Few were the
boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of that
buxom month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and woodland,
to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then lay fair and green
beyond the village of Charing, and behind the isle of Thorney, (amidst
the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast and fair the Hall
and Abbey of Westminster;) many a wood lay dark in the starlight, along
the higher ground that sloped from the dank Strand, with its numerous
canals or dykes;--and on either side of the great road into Kent:--flutes
and horns sounded far and near through the green places, and laughter and
song, and the crash of breaking boughs.

As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming faces bowed down to
bathe in the May dew. Patient oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows, all
fragrant with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came forth from
the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps full of flowers,
which they had caught asleep. The poles were pranked with nosegays, and
a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox. Then towards daybreak,
the processions streamed back into the city, through all its gates; boys
with their May-gads (peeled willow wands twined with cowslips) going
before; and clear through the lively din of the horns and flutes, and
amidst the moving grove of branches, choral voices, singing some early
Saxon stave, precursor of the later song--

"We have brought the summer home."

Often in the good old days before the Monk-king reigned, kings and
ealdermen had thus gone forth a-maying; but these merriments, savouring
of heathenesse, that good prince misliked: nevertheless the song was as
blithe, and the boughs were as green, as if king and ealderman had walked
in the train.

On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the cowslip, and the
greenest woods for the bough, surrounded a large building that once had
belonged to some voluptuous Roman, now all defaced and despoiled; but the
boys and the lasses shunned those demesnes; and even in their mirth, as
they passed homeward along the road, and saw near the ruined walls, and
timbered outbuildings, grey Druid stones (that spoke of an age before
either Saxon or Roman invader) gleaming through the dawn--the song was
hushed--the very youngest crossed themselves; and the elder, in solemn
whispers, suggested the precaution of changing the song int