On This First Day Of The Merry Month Of May

A PRAYER FOR MAY

"May Christ through your faith dwell in your hearts!

May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and

grasp with all the saints, God's devoted people, the experience

of that love, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it.

That you may really come to know the love of Christ, which far

surpasses mere knowledge; that you may be filled through all your being

unto all the fullness of God, may have the richest measure of the divine

Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!

Ephesians 3:17-19

Old-Fashioned Peonies In Bloom

SONG ON A MAY MORNING

Now the bright morning star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, Bounteous May, that doth inspire

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing;

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long

John Milton

(1608-1674)

English poet

"We Bring A Branch Of May"

An Illustration from "The Little Book Of Old Rhymes"

(1930)

Cecily Mary Barker

(1895-1973)

English artist

THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

(From The Sheepheardes Calendar Maye)

Is not thilke the merry month of May,

When love-lads masken in fresh array?

How falls it, then, we no merrier been,

Ylike as others, girt in gaudy green?

Our blankets liveries been all too sad

For thilke same season when all is yclad

With pleasaunce; the ground with grass, the woods

With green leaves, the bushes with blossoming buds.

Young folk now flocken in everywhere

To gather May buskets and smelling brere;

And home they hasten the postes to dight,

And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light,

With hawthorne buds and sweet eglantine,

And garlands of roses and sops-in-wine.

Edmund Spenser

(1552-1599)

English poet

Pastourelle

(The Little Sheperdess)
(1889)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

(1825-1905)

French painter