May and the Poets / Leigh Hunt

from To May

May and the Poets

    There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior,
May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May’s in all the Italian books;

She has old and modern nooks
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.

    Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May’s at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

~~
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
from Poetical Works, 1857

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Leigh Hunt biography