Poems of the Week: May Flowers

"The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May." (Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur [1485], book XVIII, 25). Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) said much the same thing, some 100 years earlier, in The Knight's Tale, from the Canterbury Tales:

For May wol have no slogarde anyght.
The sesoun priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh hym out of his slep to sterte.

May, with alle thy floures and thy grene,
Welcome be thou, fair, fresshe May.

I talked not too long ago about the gaelic languages, and the Celtic fringe on the west of Europe, and I mentioned there that the really fey group were the Cornish. It seems appropriate that one of the odder of these spring festivals takes place in Cornwall, in a little village called Helston. It is properly called the Furry Dance (Furry rhymes with hurry), but it is nowadays more often called the Floral Dance. This is always held on May 8th, (unless that falls on Sunday or Monday, in which case the Dance is held the previous Saturday), which makes this week the ideal one to talk about the poetry related to these issues! The proceedings start at 7:30am, and continue into the late evening. Incidentally, on the 1st of May there is another Cornish festival held at Padstow called the Obby Oss, involving a procession to "musicians playing a hypnotic tune". "The dance's origins are believed to be pagan and it is one of the oldest remaining customs in England".

Here are three verses of a song written by Katie Moss (1881 - 1947) in 1911. She was a violinist, pianist and singer: she wrote some other songs, but The Floral Dance is the one she was best known for.

I thought I could hear the curious tone
Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone
Fiddle, 'cello, big bass drum
Bassoon, flute and euphonium
Far away, as in a trance
I heard the sound of the Floral Dance 

And soon I heard such a bustling and prancing
And then I saw the whole village was dancing
In and out of the houses they came
Old folk, young folk, all the same
In that quaint old Cornish town 

Every boy took a girl 'round the waist
And hurried her off in tremendous haste
Whether they knew one another I care not
Whether they cared at all, I know not
But they kissed as they danced along.

In searching the web for more information, I came across Alison's Cornwall Pages which contained the following: "All this talk about 'Furry' Dance sent me straight to my copy of 'Portrait of Cornwall' by Claud Berry where he has a chapter called 'As it do Belong'. It should not be 'Flora' or 'Floral' Dance, it is the Helston Furry Dance and the Cornish 'Fer' means a fair. Of course the town is always decorated with bluebells and in the 18th Century, knowledgeable people who seemed obsessed with all things classical, incorrectly attributed the festival as being of Roman origin and called the dance the 'Floral Dance', which unfortunately stuck...but not in Helston. When we lived in Helston in the 1970's we would be woken at 7am by the sound of the bass drum which meant that the Hal-an-Tow had started. This is a play which is sung through the streets depicting the struggle between St.Michael and The Devil for possession of Helston, The children's dance followed at 10am and all the gentry at midday with the main furry dance through the local houses."

So now you know.

In Britain as a whole the most common festival at this time of year is the Maypole Dance: similar celebrations are found in other parts of Europe. Again, they are thought to have been derived from earlier pagan festivals, which meant they were at times violently attacked by fundamentalist Christian sects; this is believed by some sources to be the reason that the Maypole did not appear to make the voyage to America.

According to tradition, a Maypole was cut before the festival: a tall straight tree, stripped of branches, and placed upright on the village green. The cutting of the maypole was always accompanied by much joyous celebration with dancing and singing. Customarily the tree is decorated with garlands of flowers and long ribbons which are attached to its crown. In celebration, ends of the ribbons are taken in hand by young men and women alternatively who dance around the tree in opposite directions braiding the ribbons over and under while singing until the tree is wrapped in ribbons, and all the participants are close together at the bottom of the pole. In recent times, the dance then restarted in the opposite directions until the ribbons were completely unwound.

It is my opinion that this was a late modification introduced by spoilsports.

Here is a poem by Jonathon Swift (1667-1745) called A Maypole, written in 1725:

Deprived of root, and branch and rind,
Yet flowers I bear of every kind:
And such is my prolific power,
They bloom in less than half an hour;
Yet standers-by may plainly see
They get no nourishment from me.
My head with giddiness goes round,
And yet I firmly stand my ground:
All over naked I am seen,
And painted like an Indian queen.
No couple-beggar in the land
E'er joined such numbers hand in hand.
I joined them fairly with a ring;
Nor can our parson blame the thing.
And though no marriage words are spoke,
They part not till the ring is broke;
Yet hypocrite fanatics cry,
I'm but an idol raised on high;
And once a weaver in our town,
A damned Cromwellian, knocked me down.
I lay a prisoner twenty years,
And then the jovial cavaliers
To their old post restored all three - 
I mean the church, the king, and me.

On Richmond Hill there lives a lass
More bright than Mayday morn;
Whose charms all other maids' surpass -
A rose without a thorn.

Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) used the image of the rose several times in the rubaiyat collected by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883):

Irám indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshýd's Sev'n ring'd Cup where no one knows;
     But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.

And David's Lips are lock't, but in divine
High-piping Péhlevi, with 'Wine! Wine! Wine!
     Red Wine!' - the Nightingale cries o the Rose,
That yellow Cheek of hers t' incarnadine.

And look - a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke - and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
     And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshýd and Kaikobád away.

Look to the Rose that blows about us - 'Lo,
Laughing' she says, 'into the World I blow:
      At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.'

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
     That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the Ruby Vintage drink:
     And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee - take that, and do not shrink.

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore - but was I sober when I swore?
     And then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.

Alas! That Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
     The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

Here are one or two relevant lines:

Change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
For the raptures and roses of vice.
                                        From Dolores

Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? For the world is not sweet in the end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.
                                         From Hymn to Proserpine

I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
                                          From The Garden of Proserpine

I also quoted in an earlier piece Ernest Dowson's (1867-1900) lines:

They are not long, the days of wine and roses;
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng.

I hope you like them! But don't forget!

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

See you next week!

Bavarian Gentians

The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

To a Mountain Daisy