Excerpt from Through the Year With the Poets, Vol. 5: May Since Chaucer's time the month of May has never lacked its laureates to sing its praises in melodious verse. But the May poetry of an earlier day, like the most of Nature-inspired verse, was more general and didactic in its character than at present. The Vic torian poets have something in view beyond the glorification of the month. They do not rest content with telling us that in May the grass is green and that the flowers are fresh and gay, but they let the very breath of blossom time blow through their lines. So, in this volume, the praise of May is not the only theme, since there is also here the Odorous fragrance of apple blooms, the echo of bird songs, the May time joy as well as the Maytime sadness. All these have their place in any attempt to adequately present the spirit of the month, for all these have found frequent utterance in English verse. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.