"May Day" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It makes me laugh as I recall how, on that May day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled delighted, as an idiot with myself and said: "Matt, you are of the kings now. Your crown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to keep it. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... of Neri and Bianchi at this time distracted Florence; at the head of the Blacks, though somewhat their enemy, was Corso Donati; at the head of the Whites were the Cerchi and the Cavalcanti. After the horrid disaster of May Day, when the Carraja bridge, crowded with folk come to see that strange carnival of the other world, fell and drowned so many, there had been much fighting in the city, in which Corso Donati stood neutral, for he was ill with ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... a brief part of a song from Davidson's Fleet Street Eclogue of May Day. I quote these lines in particular, because, unlike most very short passages of this poet, they admit of being disentangled from their setting. They are typical of only one side of a many-sided being, the side which exults in the simple sensuous delights of nature. They are two ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... Tom Quad at Christ Church (or "The House," as it is called), and were shown the rooms in which the author of "Alice in Wonderland" lived for so many years; and so right up through the city to Magdalen Grove, where the deer live, and Magdalen Tower, on the top of which the May Day carols are sung. ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... rear. The Alpadores are in their finest Sunday costume, and the sound of yodel-songs—the very voice of Alpine landscapes—echoes from every hill. Such a picture as this, under the cloudless blue of a fortunate May day, makes the heart of the Appenzeller light. He goes joyously up to his summer labor, and makes his herb-cheese on the heights, while his wife weaves and embroiders muslin in the valley ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... of the; manifestation and visible image of God, 13-u. Sun symbolized by the point within the circle, 486-l. Sun termed by an inscription on an obelisk as "Apollo," etc, 460-u. Sun, the festival of May day of Druidical origin and in honor of the, 367-l. Sun, the great symbol of the Mysteries, purified Souls, 408. Sun, the moderator in the celestial harmony; fourth in musical scale, 410-m. Sun the name of the seventh gate of the ladder; material, gold, 414-m. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... One May day Avonlea folks were mildly excited over some "Avonlea Notes," signed "Observer," which appeared in the Charlottetown 'Daily Enterprise.' Gossip ascribed the authorship thereof to Charlie Sloane, partly because the said Charlie had indulged in similar literary flights ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the herdsman did not know the animals he could not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The health of the community and of the live stock also received attention: in 1583 one Pattynson was fined ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... yellow roses and a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the shawl) sprinkled with tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the poor beloved curls to-day, alas! so thin and white) were at this time without a gray hair. There was about her the fragrance of the May day, and her face as it looked that morning with its broad brimmed hat is still distinctly present with me. Besides the bouquet of pink hyacinths, she had brought me a tiny watering-pot, an exact imitation in miniature of the ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... Territory were miners, and the unsettling element of gold-dust hung in the air, breeding argument. The early, thin, bright morning steadily mellowed against the windows distant from the stove; the panes melted clear until they ran, steamed faintly, and dried, this fresh May day, after the night's untimely cold; while still the Legislature sat in its shirt-sleeves, and several statesmen had removed their boots. Even had appearances counted, the session was invisible from ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... spring at the bottom of the garden, and lifted her head as a young deer does when it senses something new or dangerous. Suddenly, and entirely subconsciously, she felt her kinship with life, her relation to the lovely May day which was more like June than May—and a rare thing for Kenmore—whose seasons lapsed into each other as calmly and sluggishly as did all the other happenings in that spot known to the Canadian Indians as The Place Beyond ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... man of piscatory tastes, having duly warned his company to turn out on a certain day, they, like obedient soldiers, appeared promptly on parade at the appointed time, but, unfortunately, they went undrilled, except in the manuoevres of a soldier's wit and unlicensed jesting, that May day; for their captain, forgetting his own appointment, and warned only by the favorable aspect of the heavens, as he had often done before, went a-fishing that afternoon, and his company thenceforth was ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... and in single file, the expedition left Green River City behind and pulled into the shadows of the phenomenal rocks in the early morning of that May day of 1869. During the first few days they had no serious mishap: they lost an oar, broke a barometer-tube and occasionally struck a bar. All around them abounded examples of that natural architecture which is seen from the passing train at the "City"—weird statuary, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... Forge. Dancing assemblies, theatrical entertainments, and various gaieties marked the advent of the British in Philadelphia, all of which formed a fitting prelude to the full-blown glories of the Meschianza, which burst upon the admiring inhabitants on that last-century May day."[224] ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... bathing-drawers. In he goes, has a good long swim with her, and when he comes out, says, of his dripping ducks, 'tabula votiva . . . avida vestimenta,' to remind an old schoolmate of his hopping to the booth at the end of a showery May day, and dedicating them to the laundry in these words. It seems marvellous. It was a quaint revival, an hour after breakfast, for little Collett to be acting as intermediary with Selina to request Lady Ormont's grant of a five-minutes' interview before the church-bell summoned her. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sand bars and stretches of pebbly beach, such brilliantly colored pebbles as we used to see in Northern Italy, when the rivers were low as these are here to-day. Much the same view is this as John Evelyn's first sight of Chaumont, on a May day long ago: "We took boate," wrote Evelyn, "passing by Chaumont, a proud castle on the left hand; before it a small island deliciously shaded with tall trees." As we motored through the village street, whose houses run parallel with the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... This tenth May day falls into the loathsome sick-bed; but dull, unnoticed there: for they that look out of the windows are quite darkened; the cistern-wheel moves discordant on its axis; Life, like a spent steed, is panting towards the goal. In their remote apartments, Dauphin and Dauphiness stand ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... theatricals and charades, which became at one period very much in vogue in the aristocratic houses of New York and Philadelphia. Concerts were often held, and in the country many old-time English festivals, such as May Day, were kept up. The most frequent and fashionable amusements of that time were balls and parties. We hear of the gentlemen and dames going to "routs" in their sedan chairs, much as they did in the old country: arriving at eight—they kept better hours than our modern fashionable people—they ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... pigeons, "obscuring utterly the waning day and deafening one with the mighty rushing sound of countless strong and rapidly-plied pinions." According to Hume the breeding season for these birds in Upper India lasts from Christmas to May day. The experience of the writer is that April, May and June are the months in which to look for their nests. However, in justice to Hume, it must be said that recently Mr. A. J. Currie found a nest, ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... carpenter, with such power over 'hallucinated' Magdalens, conducting grand picnics in that 'charming' climate, and making life a May day, is not the world's mighty Deliverer; and his miracle-mongering demagogue, claiming to be the Son of David in lying genealogies, and the Son of God in blasphemous audacity, is not the world's Teacher of all Truth and Righteousness. The new Jesus is a poor ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... (because summer was not come); a white handkerchief tied over her head-gear, because it was so foggy, so damp, and so early; and a straw bonnet and ribbons peeping from under the handkerchief, because it was likely to be a sunny May day. ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... them—with interest. For they had all disappeared. They were in the trenches, landing at Suvla, garrisoning Egypt, pushing up to Baghdad. The colleges contained a few forlorn remnants—under age, or medically unfit. The river, on a glorious May day, showed boats indeed, but girls were rowing them. Oriel, the college of Arnold, of Newman, of Cecil Rhodes, was filled with women students, whose own college, Somerville, had become a hospital. The Examination ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the customary date for turning out cattle to grass, but people forget that old May Day was nearly a fortnight later, which makes a great difference as to warmth and keep at that ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... cane, he picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about the open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. Hines's nerves were not all that ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... this May Day of the year 157, at the place hight Rozel in the Manor called of the same of Jersey Isle, to Michel de la Foret, at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... On May Day there was a parade of the negro drivers; many drove carts, drays and wagons, for on that day they had holiday, and paraded with wagons and horses adorned with ribbons, flowers and bright papers, the drivers ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... and one beautiful May day, Leonard Fairfield sat beside the little fountain which he had now actually constructed in the garden. The butterflies were hovering over the belt of flowers which he had placed around his fountain, and the birds were singing ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was president, secretary, and treasurer, and kept the funds in a little purse that his cousin knit for him. There was three and sixpence on hand, I believe, the last time he brought in his accounts, on a May day, when we had a meeting in a grove on the river-bank. Tom was a very honest treasurer, and never spent the Society's money for peanuts; and besides all, was a fine, generous boy, whom I much loved. But I must not ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... custom which was frequently productive of costly extravagance. Then there was their festival of the Floralia, in honour of the reappearance of spring-time, with its hosts of bright blossoms, a survival of which has long been kept up in this country on May Day, when garlands and carols form the chief feature of the rustic merry-making. Another grand ceremonial occasion, when flowers were specially in request, was the Fontinalia, an important day in Rome, for the wells and fountains were ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... of these little people are my benefactors, and add another ray of sunshine to the May day. I shall not soon forget the spectacle of that rare little warbler peeping around the corner of the porch, like a little fairy, and ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... the winter's ice storms could have wrought. Between these more kindly adventurers and the pasture folk have grown up a friendly intimacy which is beginning to teach city ways to the pasture denizens. Therein lies the cause of my surprise. Under the soft mists of a cool May day I brushed the dew from the wood grasses and unrolling croziers of cinnamon fern to pause in admiration at shrubs and trees bearing calling cards. Here is a red cedar announcing on a Dennison tag, "I am Juniperus virginiana, known to my intimates as savin." Out of its nimbus ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... condemned; in this very Hall, Sir Thomas More and Protector Sommerset were doomed to the scaffold. Here, in Henry VIII.'s reign (1517), entered the City apprentices, implicated in the murders on 'Evil May Day' of the aliens settled in London, each with a halter round his neck, and crying 'Mercy, gracious Lord, Mercy,' while Wolsey stood by, and the King, beneath his cloth of state, heard their defense and pronounced their pardon—the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... aside, an important fact remains: shorn as he was, McClellan was still strong enough to meet and to defeat his opponents. If he had been one of the great generals of the world he would have been in Richmond before May Day; but he was at his old trick of exaggerating the hostile forces and the difficulties in his way. On April 7 he thought that Johnston and the whole Confederate army were at Yorktown; whereas Johnston's advance ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... May day, as I write this at my cabin in the woods, Correggio seems to me truly one of the world's marvelous men. He is near, very dear, and yet before him I would stand ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... the English fleet at Antigua would not go except by order from England—which, however, came soon afterward, so that he and his ships joined them after all before hostilities began. The expedition first set eyes on their objective point on the day before May day, 1745. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... investigation of current events. They had already opinions of their own, which not rarely they could utter with striking audacity."—I could only envy these lines of gold; not one word of them had any reference to me: for I was still but a child. During a night that followed a lovely May day, the weather suddenly changed: winter, who was during the days of his dominion, watching how the warm breezes played with the flower-bells of the trees, all at once returned: with the full vigor of vengeance he came, and in three days ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the morning dawned. The sun of a serene and beautiful May day rose over the spectacle of smouldering ruins and blood. The victors, weary of sleeplessness, of their night's march, and of the carnage, sat down among the smoking brands and amid the bodies of the ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... be there early. Miss Bushy Tail has promised to be my partner for the Polonaise," he said. "I hope you have a cup of coffee ready for me." He then sat down, and peered at Walter with his bright, inquisitive eyes. Now everyone knows that the foxes dance on the Feldberg on May Day. On one of the biggest fir-trees there hangs a picture of two foxes dancing, and these cross-roads have thence derived their name Fuchstanz. But they do not only dance on May Day, but on many other occasions such as the ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... UFO's were still there because the day before the all- important May Day celebration, a day when the Soviet radio and TV are normally crammed with programs plugging the glory of Mother Russia to get the peasants in the mood for the next day, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences had to get ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... with you. We have much to do on this fine May day. First, we will go to the hardware store, saving the queensware store till the last,—like float at the end of a ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... the misery he knew to be reigning within. Its situation was charming,—in the midst, as has just been stated, of a large and, until recently, well-cultivated garden, and seen under the influence of a bright and genial May day, the whole place looked the picture of healthfulness and comfort. But a closer view speedily dispelled the illusion, and showed that it was the abode of disease and death. Horrid sounds saluted the ears; ghastly ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dined with us. He said during the dinner, when we heard a blast of wintry wind howling outside, 'This is May day enough; it does not matter to us how cold it is outside.' He was inclined to be silent, for there were other and brilliant talkers at the table, one of whom said to him in a pause of the conversation, ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... groups of the charming flower songs by Mrs. Gaynor, bird songs by Nevin, simple folk dances, and appropriate Spring poems, etc., as part of the May Day fete.) ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... with him every yard of the way from London, reached a climax of irony as he was drawn into the crowd on the pier. It did not soften his feelings to remember that, but for her lack of forethought, he might, at this harsh end of the stormy May day, have been sitting before his club fire in London instead of shivering in the damp human herd on the pier. Admitting the sex's traditional right to change, she might at least have advised him of hers by telegraphing directly to his rooms. But in spite of their exchange of ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... to Susan. She put the bright guinea carefully into the glove with the twelve shillings, which she had received from her companions on May day. Besides this treasure, she calculated that the amount of the bills for bread could not be less than eight or nine and thirty shillings; and as her father was now sure of a week's reprieve, she had great hopes that, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... inspire the grand international solidarity of proletariats. There was a set-back in wages over the whole world. At the same time the strike-weapon tended to fail. May Day, 1921, was one of the quietest of May Days. In Paris it was a joyous holiday; in Berlin, though the jewellers ordered new steel screens for their goods, not a window was broken; in London the gloomy coal strike ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Emmy again. A clear apprehension had already been born in me that only her presence, her encouragement, her devotion could redeem me. And when I saw her cordially bowing from the carriage that awaited us at the suburban station on a bright, sunny May day, and went to meet her trembling and dizzy with emotion, and seeing nothing of the great world about me save her hair, golden in the sunlight, the white dress, the broad-brimmed straw hat and the shining eyes - I really believed that I was saved, and I no longer wavered in my ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... with adverse fate, on a cotton plantation, near Port Gibson, Mississippi. Recollecting the downfall and humiliation of Madam Blennerhassett, Evaleen sighed and cast her gaze mournfully toward the spot upon which had stood the stately mansion, which had been to her a second home. But on that May day in 1815, could she have lifted the veil of the future, events far more depressing would have been disclosed. She would have beheld the former lord of the isle, landless, harassed by debts, now in Natchez, now in New York, and now in Canada, unsuccessfully ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... court-officials, in whose faces it was easy to read that they were afraid of their ruler's wrath, and preferred keeping as far from him as possible. The dazzling light and oppressive heat of a Babylonian May day came in through the open windows, and not a sound was to be heard in the great room, except the whining of a large dog of the Epirote breed, which had just received a tremendous kick from Cambyses for venturing to fawn on his master, and was the only being that ventured to disturb the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... after years had passed, and various political changes had taken place, that one bright May day, bright as such days are sometimes seen in the west, a heavy carriage drawn by four horses, and attended by two gentlemen and a sturdy servitor on horseback, passed slowly up and down the hills along the road ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... every student at the college had been working for months past. And now, almost the first of May, everything was in readiness, the pageants, the costumes, the plays—all the splendid and complicated arrangements for an Old English May Day Festival. Judy, as she had planned on the opening night of college all those long months ago, was to be a gentleman of the court and was now engaged in constructing a velvet cape with Nance's assistance. Furthermore all ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... was one of the chief festivals of ancient times and also in more modern times. The Romans held the "Floralia" or festivals in honor of Flora, the Goddess of Flowers, from April 28th to the First of May. The Celts and English used to celebrate May Day extensively. But time makes many changes and as the years increase this custom has decreased, so that in some parts of the country the present generation know May first only as moving day instead of a festival ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... One May day they were picnicking in the big forest. It was a day of spongy dampness underfoot, sweet and wild with breezes, blue of sky, and still cold in the shade, if it was heavenly warm in the sun. Alix, who was hot and panting from the scrambling and slipping downhill, hung on a bank, with her arm crooked ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... account of the relations of apprentices to their masters; though I confess that I do not know whether Edmund Burgess could have become a citizen of York after serving an apprenticeship in London. Evil May Day is closely described in Hall's Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in all respects; but the story-teller may surely have license to follow whatever is most suitable to the purpose. The sermon is exactly ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... white curtains as if astonished. What was this? Two muscular black clad arms were stretched across a table, and between them lay a brown head, inert, hopeless. It seemed strange that on such a May day, with such a May breeze, life could look dark to anything young, yet Reginald Fairfax, at the head of the graduating class, easily first in more than one way—in scholarship, in athletics, in versatility, and, more ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... ended with a terrific windstorm which nearly destroyed the hut. The one remaining tent had to be dismantled, the pole taken down, and the inhabitants had to lie flat all night under the icy canvas. This lasted well into May, and a typical May day is described as follows: "A day of terrific winds, threatening to dislodge our shelter. The wind is a succession of hurricane gusts that sweep down the glacier immediately south-south- west of us. Each gust heralds its approach ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... he set to it, and after a lot of patient skirmishing he began to see faint signs of hope. He held in, however, so powerful as his nature would let him until the signs heartened the man for a dash at last, and 'twas by Hound's Pool on a May day with the bluebells beside the water, and the cherry blossom tasselling over their heads—that he told the girl she was the light of his spring and the breath ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... Mendelssohn or Chopin of this vast forest solitude heard those harsh notes and putting a golden cornet to his lips, sent back the melodies the bugler meant to make. As the last reverberations died away among the hills we thought of those lines in Emerson's "May Day": ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... life Theodora will remember that glorious May day. Its even minutest detail, the color of the chestnut-trees, the tint of the sky, the scent in the air, every line of his figure and turn of his head, every look in his eyes—and they were many and varied—and also and alas! every growing emotion in her ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... danger for Valois in the Commandante's scowl when the saddest May day of his life comes. A rider on relay horses hands him a ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and fair summer grazing. In winter huge snow banks lie there just below the summit of the hill, blotting out the stone fences beneath eight or ten feet of snow. I have known these banks to linger there until the middle of May. I remember carrying a jug of water one hot May day to my brother Curtis who was ploughing the upper and steepest side hill, and whose plough had nearly reached the edge of the huge snow bank. Sometimes the woodchucks feel the call of spring in their dens in the ground ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... tubes. He tuned to a general call frequency. He began to say, "May Day! May Day! May Day!" in a level voice. This emergency call has precedence over all other calls but S.O.S., which has an identical meaning. But "May Day" is more distinct and ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... manor-house of Sir Christopher Burroughs of Stolham, Norfolk, lay shining in the last rays of the setting sun, on the eve of May Day 1646. The long range of windows along the front of the building between the two buttresses flashed with crimson and gold; for the house faced the south-west, and the brilliant light that shone from the rim of the blood-red cloud behind which the sun was sinking, glowed ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... but three cows and loved but one. That was the first one, Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Potomac one bright May day many clover summers ago. She came from the north, from the pastoral regions of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons of the national capital. I was then the fortunate and happy lessee of an old place with an acre ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... something behind the locked windows of his soul recognized a congenial spirit in the open windows of Nick Hilliard's, and the two had made friends years ago. The morning's call was a renewal of old acquaintance; and the sea-green light under the Grapevine was as clear as on another May day, when Nick was six years younger. The alligators were larger; but the white-faced owls were unchanged—unless perhaps a little wiser, a little more instructed in the oldest secrets of an old, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... settled, and Richard and Dorothy were married at Hursley on May Day, 1649, before Cromwell's departure to crush the ill-arranged risings in Ireland. Her sister Anne shortly after married John Dunch of Baddesley, with 1000 pounds as her portion. Morley of Baddesley chronicles the marriage in no friendly tone: "When" ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... having had many ugly dreams to-night of my father and my sister and mother's coming to us, and meeting my wife and me at the gate of the office going out, they all in laced suits, and come, they told me, to be with me this May day. My mother told me she lacked a pair of gloves, and I remembered a pair of my wife's in my chamber, and resolved she should have them, but then recollected how my mother come to be here when I was in mourning for ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... from the quiet death-beds of Alfred and of Bede, we transfer ourselves to the great hall of the Blackfriars' monastery, London, on a dull, warm May day in 1378, amid purple robes and gowns of satin and damask, amid monks and abbots, and bishops and doctors of the Church, assembled for the trial of John Wycliffe, the parish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sudden inspiration. "Give a May Day. Try every channel with a May Day. If anyone picks up a May Day call you'll get ...
— The Day of the Dog • Anderson Horne
... on foot. Some of the earlier students were very young, but in 1858 the age of admission was raised to eighteen. From time to time the buildings have been enlarged. Mr. Ruskin instituted in 1880 a May Day Festival, to be held annually, and as long as he lived, he himself presented to the May Queen a gold cross and chain, and distributed to her comrades some of his volumes. Mr. Ruskin also presented to the college ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... it may still be seen in country places at certain times of the year. The very meagre celebrations of May Day, which can be seen in London even now, are a survival of the ancient customs with which the Morrice-Dance was always associated. Hawkins gives this account of the Morris; "there are few country places in this kingdom where it is not known; it is ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... had passed and it was late in April, not unlike that May day just the year before when she had first seen her sister-in-law. Try as she would she could not keep her thoughts from that day and all that ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... fight again for many days. None of the persons who had wronged him would be punished for some time, neither his coarse and cowardly rival, nor his perfidious mistress, nor monstrous Lydia Maitland, whose infamy he had just discovered. They were all happy and triumphant, on that lovely, radiant May day, while he tossed on a bed of pain, and it was proven too clearly to him that very afternoon by his two seconds, the only visitors whom he had not denied admission, and who came to see him about five o'clock. ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... room at the Gibson House yesterday, while the balmy May breeze blew through the open windows, fluttered the lace curtains and tossed the great Infidel's snowy hair to and fro. The Colonel had come in from New York during the morning and the keen white sunlight of a lovely May day filled his heart with gladness. After breakfast, the man who preaches the doctrine of the Golden Rule and the Gospel of Humanity and the while chaffs the gentlemen of the clerical profession, was in a fine humor. He was busy ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... survey London. To impress a stranger with any sense of the charm of London as a whole, let him be taken to that vantage-ground and bidden to gaze. The great city seemed to lie below and around him as in a hollow, tinged and glorified by the luminous haze of the May day. The countless spires which pointed to heaven in all directions gave the vast agglomeration of buildings something of an Italian air; it reminded the beholder agreeably of Florence. To right and to left the gigantic city spread, its grey wreath of eternal smoke resting ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... fertile and as fair to look upon as is given the eyes of man to behold anywhere in God's good world. In the dullest weather this rolling, tree-decked, sleugh-gemmed prairie presents a succession of scenes surpassingly beautiful, but with a westering sun upon it, and on a May day, it offers such a picture as at once entrances the soul and lives forever in the memory. The waving lines, the rounded hills, the changing colour, the chasing shadows on grass and bluff and shimmering water, all combine to make in the ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... past comfortable homes fronted with lawns and shaded by weeping willows. There is a peculiar melancholia about a May day; it had an effect on the young bankclerk. He walked by hedges beyond the end of Mt. Alban's asphalt out into the suburbs. Spring birds sang their thanks to Nature, and to the homesick heart a bird's singing is sadness. It is natural for such a heart to seek quiet. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... mother first told the doctors' decision about the boy. Certain days impress their atmosphere indelibly; they have being to them like persons, and through years the odor, the light, the sense of their few hours may be recalled as vividly as when they were lived. This May day the birds were twittering beside the veranda where Margaret was reading to the Little Man, when Falkner came up the drive. The long windows of the house were opened to admit the soft air, for it was already summer. Margaret was dressed in a black gown that ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived at the hostelry in Southwark, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... the sport was, how sweet to breathe the bright pure air of that May day; how grand to outstrip the wind over the yielding turf, and at last to carry home the trophies of their prowess; the scalp of the wolf, the tusks of the boar, leaving the serfs to bring in the succulent flesh of the latter, while the hawks and crows ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... Tomorrow will be May day—once, before the world became industrial, a day of gladness, now a day of dread, another ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... significance of the movement is less to his credit. But he did miss it, fifty years ago and for several years thereafter, even as he is still missing the democratic significance of other movements to-day. Processions still pass him by,—for peace, for universal suffrage, May Day, Labor Day, and those black days when the nations mobilize for war, they pass him by,—and the last thing he seems to discover about them is their democratic significance. But after a long while the meaning of it all has begun to penetrate. To-day, his daughters go to college as a matter ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... Tranmores' number in Park Lane and departed thither, not without a sad glance at the desolate hall behind the charwoman and at the darkened windows of the drawing-room overhead. He thought of that May day two years before when he had dropped in to lunch with Lady Kitty; his memory, equally effective whether it summoned the detail of an English chronicle or the features of a face once seen, placed firm and clear before him the long-chinned ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... May Day, and the spring had taken hold of me body and soul. The sky was full of stars, and the garden of scents, and the borders of wallflowers and sweet, sly pansies. All day there had been a breeze, and all day slow masses of white clouds ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... afternoon of a May day. Sally Cosgar is kneeling, near the entrance chopping up cabbage-leaves with a kitchen-knife. She is a girl of twenty-five, dark, heavily built, with the expression of a half-awakened creature. She is coarsely dressed, and has a sacking apron. She is quick at work, and ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... little romance opens in New York City in "the tender grace" of a May day long past, when the old Dutch families clustered around Bowling Green. It is the beginning of the romance of Katherine, a young Dutch girl who has sent, as a love token, to a young English officer, the bow of orange ribbon which she has worn ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... a beautiful May day, came the great moment. The mother had to go along, the boy insisted, to see the great event, and so the trio found themselves shaking the hand of the President's secretary at ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... the spirit of the blue and golden May day, cool enough to be pleasant, warm enough to be a joy, or the little breeze which came floating across the campus carrying an intoxicating scent of lilacs, but whatever the reason, some sprite seemed to have taken possession of Judith, and she threw herself into the game with such enthusiasm, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... very fair in the sun of that May day, with its homely gables of warm red brick and sunburnt timber, its cheery roof of Holland tile, and with the sunlight flashing from the diamond panes that were leaded into the sashes of the great bay-window on ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... o'er lit-tle May Day and night her watch would keep; May her care can now re-pay, ...
— The Infant's Delight: Poetry • Anonymous
... It came—a baking May day, with hot wave rising off the parched land as far as eyes could see, and as Samuel sat stewing in his little improvised office—a few chairs, a bench, and a wooden table—he was glad the thing was almost over. He wanted to get back East the worst way, and join his wife ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... lassie is lovely, as May day adorning Wi' gowans an' primroses ilka green lee; Though sweet is the violet, new blown i' the morning, As tender an' sweet is her blue rollin' e'e. O, say what is whiter than snaw on the mountain? Or what wi' the red rose in beauty can vie? Yes, whiter her bosom than snaw on the mountain, An' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... It was a squally May day, with bright sunbursts and driving showers. Montgomery worked all morning in the surgery getting his ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... May day came—warm, bright, and beautiful. At six o'clock in the morning the Zephyr and the Butterfly were manned, and the boys went over to the island to trim the May-pole with evergreen and flowers. The Sylph ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... in the same day, a bright, sunny golden afternoon, more like a warm May day than a day ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... of rock that jutted out over the boiling water, Margaret seated herself with her back against the big red polished bole of a pine tree, while at her feet Dick threw himself, reclining against a huge pine root that threw great clinging arms here and there about the rocky ledges. It was a sweet May day. All the scents and sounds of spring filled up the fragrant spaces of the woods. Far up through the great feathering branches gleamed patches of blue sky. On every side stretched long aisles pillared with the clean red trunks of the pine trees ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... would be a week before the looked-for arrival. "The season's a bit backward," Mr. Red-winged Blackbird remarked. "So I don't expect to set eyes on him to-day—though I have known him to get here as early as May Day." ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... round of pleasures, dissipation, a short life and a merry one, racketing, holiday making. rejoicing &c 838; jubilee &c (celebration) 883. bonfire, fireworks, feu-de-joie, firecracker. holiday; gala day, red letter day, play day; high days and holidays; high holiday, Bank holiday; May day, Derby day; Saint Monday, Easter Monday, Whit Monday; Bairam^; wayz-goos^, bean feast; Arbor Day, Declaration Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day; Mardi gras [Fr.], mi-careme [Fr.], feria [Lat.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cleared land around it; and it would not do to pass it, at that time of the day. The distance from this solitary dwelling to the first habitation on Herman Mordaunt's property, was eighteen miles; and that was a length of road that would require the whole of a long May day ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever since, training the torn tendrils of his heart about the lad, till peace came back again, though never the perfect joy of the earlier days. Every May Day the two were wont to go upon an expedition many miles into the Foothills, to a little, sunny spot, where a strong, palisaded enclosure held a little grave. So little it looked, and so lonely amid the great hills. There, not in an abandonment of ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the banks of the beautiful river, gathering flowers and glancing at our "secesh" neighbors on the opposite bank, only a few yards distant; or we lounged in the shade of our tents, enjoying the charms of a lovely May day, while the terrible din of battle on the right, where Hooker's forces were contending, shook the ground beneath us, and we knew that ere the sun set, thousands of our brave ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... Register booke. The snow did then lie so thick on the ground that the bearers carried his body over the gate in Knighton field, and the company went over the hedges, and they digged a way to the church porch. I knew some ancient people of the parish that did remember it. On a May day, 1655 or 1656, being then in Glamorganshire, at Mr. Jo. Aubrey's at Llanchrechid, I saw the mountaines of Devonshire all white with snow. There fell but little ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... in front to wheel me to the rescue of my friend or to an ignominious death. I had not only Indians to fear, but the treacherous elements. The trail ran close along the base of the mountains. It was a lovely May day. I was obliged to make thirty-two miles that night to reach cover. Less than half of the distance had been traveled when the wind veered suddenly to the north, mild at first, then a hurricane of anger, roaring and blowing with such force as to nearly upset the buggy. ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... reader to learn they were all makers of ballades and rondels. To write verses for May day, seems to have been as much a matter of course, as to ride out with the cavalcade that went to gather hawthorn. The choice of Valentines was a standing challenge, and the courtiers pelted each other with humorous and sentimental verses as ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... butterfly; "come up into the fresh morning air and the sunlight, where everything smiles this sweet May day." ...
— Child Stories from the Masters - Being a Few Modest Interpretations of Some Phases of the - Master Works Done in a Child Way • Maud Menefee
... a Pursuivant to the Sheriffs of London and their Brethren on May Day at Bishop's Wood, at an honorable dinner; each of them bringing his dish: by John Lydgate. From Ashmole's MS. ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... Wednesday.—May Day passed off quietly enough; but you can't have air charged with electricity, and your back-cellars filled with dynamite, without danger of explosion. Burst to-day in unlooked-for place, in unexpected circumstances. HALDANE brought in Bill providing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... came about that on a certain afternoon in the beginning of February, in the year 1758, I was sitting on this tomb looking out to sea. Though it was so early in the year, the air was soft and warm as a May day, and so still that I could hear the drumming of turnips that Gaffer George was flinging into a cart on the hillside, near half a mile away. Ever since the floods of which I have spoken, the weather had been open, but with high winds, and little or no rain. ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... at a splendid collation, it being then one of the clock. And being refreshed his majesty set forth again, and entered the city, which had never before shown so brave and goodly an appearance as on this May day, when all the world seemed ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... mad desires, May day, June day, lucid skies, All reckless moods that love inspires— The gladdest bird that ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Jersey, a man of towering stature and handsome face, aristocrat and courtier to his finger-tips, a fearless and graceful rider, and an expert in manly sports. Such a combination of attractions the daughter of Anne Child could not long, nor was she at all disposed to, resist. And one May day in 1804—almost twenty-two years to the day after her parents' dramatic flight to Gretna Green—the Lady Sarah became Vicountess Villiers. A year later ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... of us in the village and all around be to dance upon the green come May Day so that my lord may see who ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... inferred from his books, or magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,—an untamable petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind and he was the most patient ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the league the first national suffrage May day was observed in Little Rock with speeches from the steps of the Old State House. Seventy-five letters were sent out to prominent men in the State, asking them to make five-minute speeches and after ten days Dr. L. P. Gibson, the well-known ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Mother Hubbard. That's May Day and a very good day for a party out-of-doors. Well I must go home now. Good-by! If I can help you, please call ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... commemoration of the disappearance of the false Odin, who had ruled seven months and had brought nothing but unhappiness to the world, and of the return of the benevolent deity, the heathen Northmen formerly celebrated yearly festivals, which were long continued as May Day rejoicings. Until very lately there was always, on that day, a grand procession in Sweden, known as the May Ride, in which a flower-decked May king (Odin) pelted with blossoms the fur-enveloped Winter (his supplanter), until he put him to ignominious ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber |
