O Month when they who love must love and wed! 
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught, 
And seek to tell the memories he had brought 
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said? 
I know not if the rosy showers shed 
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought 
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught 
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read 
Thee best who in the ancient time did say 
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old: 
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day 
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold 
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie, 
To sun themselves once more before they die.