Forth goth all the court, both most and least,
    To fetch the flowres fresh, and branch and blome,
    And namely hawthorn brought both page and grome,
    And then rejoicing in their great delite
    Eke ech at others threw the flowres bright,
    The primrose, violet, and the gold
    With fresh garlants party blue and white.

Chaucer.

[056] The May-pole was usually decorated with the flowers of the hawthorn, a plant as emblematical of the spring as the holly is of Christmas.  Goldsmith has made its name familiar even to the people of Bengal, for almost every student in the upper classes of the Government Colleges has the following couplet by heart.

    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
    For talking age and whispering lovers made.

The hawthorn was amongst Burns’s floral pets.  “I have,” says he, “some favorite flowers in spring, among which are, the mountain daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-briar rose, the budding birch and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight.”

L.E.L. speaks of the hawthorn hedge on which “the sweet May has showered its white luxuriance,” and the Rev. George Croly has a patriotic allusion to this English plant, suggested by a landscape in France.

      ’Tis a rich scene, and yet the richest charm
      That e’er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here. 
      Winds no green fence around the cultured farm
      No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear: 
      The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear,
      Unrivalled England!  Well the thought may pine
      For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere,
      In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine,
    And the heart higher beats that says; ‘This spot is mine.’

[057] On May-day, the Ancient Romans used to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria.

[058] See what is said of palms in a note on page 81.

[059] Phillips’s Flora Historica.

[060] The word primrose is supposed to be a compound of prime and rose, and Spenser spells it prime rose

    The pride and prime rose of the rest
    Made by the maker’s self to be admired

The Rev. George Croly characterizes Bengal as a mountainous country—­

    There’s glory on thy mountains, proud Bengal—­

and Dr. Johnson in his Journey of a day, (Rambler No. 65) charms the traveller in Hindustan with a sight of the primrose and the oak.

“As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise; he was fanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices, he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring.”