All these my banners be. 1
I sow my pageantry
In May－
It rises train by train－
Then sleeps in state again－ 5
My chancel－all the plain
Today.
I sow my pageantry
In May－
It rises train by train－
Then sleeps in state again－ 5
My chancel－all the plain
Today.
(F.29/J.22)
[1] my banners:: Queen of May's banners.
[2] pageantry:: a spectacular show.
[3] May:: May-day, hinted by Today and pageantry.
[4, 5] rises, sleeps:: maypole dance with banners around the pole.
[6] My chancel:: Queen of May's chancel, an altar separated by a screen. plain:: a plain cloth (OED n.1 9); often used in the maypole dance.
Chief Justice Richardson, who, in official capacity, had maintained that such sports as church-ales, clerk-ales, morris-dancing, tumbling, May-pole dancing, and merry-Andrews, were not lawful on the Lord's-day, was so in temperately attacked by Laud at the Council Table, . . . The Sunday May-pole dance was thus pretended to be a means of grace, to induce people to go to church. ─ The Christian Observer (1842)