May Day with the Muses

The Project Gutenberg EBook of May Day With The Muses, by Robert
Bloomfield
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: May Day With The Muses
Author: Robert Bloomfield
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9043]
[Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on September
1, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII

0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAY DAY
WITH THE MUSES ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
Proofreaders
MAYDAY WITH THE MUSES.
BY
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD
Author of the Farmer's Boy, Rural Tales, &c.
LONDON:
Printed for the Author: and for Baldwin Chadock, and
Joy
1822
LONDON:
Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars.
PREFACE.
I am of opinion that Prefaces are very useless things in cases like the
present, where the Author must talk of himself, with little amusement
to his readers. I have hesitated whether I should say any thing or
nothing; but as it is the fashion to say something, I suppose I must
comply. I am well aware that many readers will exclaim--"It is not the
common practice of English baronets to remit half a year's rent to their
tenants for poetry, or for any thing else." This may be very true; but I
have found a character in the Rambler, No. 82, who made a very
different bargain, and who says, "And as Alfred received the tribute of
the Welsh in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in
butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed
them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy method,
most of the grubs and insects which land, air, or water can
supply.........I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grass
upon record, and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat,
an ear, containing more grains than had been seen before upon a single

stem."
I hope my old Sir Ambrose stands in no need of defence from me or
from any one; a man has a right to do what he likes with his own estate.
The characters I have introduced as candidates may not come off so
easily; a cluster of poets is not likely to be found in one village, and the
following lines, written by my good friend T. Park. Esq. of Hampstead,
are not only true, but beautifully true, and I cannot omit them.
WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF THANET,
August, 1790.
The bard, who paints from rural plains,
Must oft himself the void
supply
Of damsels pure and artless swains,
Of innocence and
industry:
For sad experience shows the heart
Of human beings much the same;

Or polish'd by insidious art,
Or rude as from the clod it came.
And he who roams the village round,
Or strays amid the harvest sere,

Will hear, as now, too many a sound
Quiet would never wish to
hear.
The wrangling rustics' loud abuse,
The coarse, unfeeling, witless jest,

The threat obscene, the oath profuse,
And all that cultured minds
detest.
Hence let those Sylvan poets glean,
Who picture life without a flaw;

Nature may form a perfect scene,
But Fancy must the figures draw.
The word "fancy" connects itself with my very childhood, fifty years
back. The fancy of those who wrote the songs which I was obliged to
hear in infancy was a very inanimate and sleepy fancy. I could
enumerate a dozen songs at least which all described sleeping
shepherds and shepherdesses, and, in one instance, where they both
went to sleep: this is not fair certainly; it is not even "watch and watch."

"As Damon and Phillis were keeping of sheep,
Being free from all
care they retired to sleep," &c.
I must say, that if I understand any thing at all about keeping sheep, this
is not the way to go to work with them. But such characters and such
writings were fashionable, and fashion will beat common sense at any
time.
With all the beauty and spirit of Cunningham's "Kate of Aberdeen,"
and some others, I never