“Merry Milly Mollycot,” Friend, May 1971, 34
Merry Milly Mollycot
Merry Milly Mollycot,
Upon the first of May,
Shook out her sheets and swept the floor
And then was heard to say,
“My work is done, I’ll do no more;
I’m tired of toil and taskets.
I’m off into the forest lands
To make some May Day baskets!”
And off she went a-tripping light
Where trees stood all around,
And various things and sundry
Were growing from the ground.
She took some bark, she took some moss,
She took some leaves and tendrils;
She took some threads from fern fronds
And tender willow bendrils.
And these she wove this way and that
And shaped them square and rounded,
Then piled them high with posies sweet
That in the grass she founded.
Then Merry Milly Mollycot,
She hung her baskets high
Upon the lamp posts of the town
Where every passerby
Could see them and admire them
And say with smiling eyes,
“These must be Merry Milly’s work—
A First-of-May surprise!”
Merry Milly Mollycot,
She grinned a Cheshire grin
And chuckled so her dimples
Kept ducking out and in.
Then up she danced a hornypipe
And sang, “I am the lady
Who made these bits of handiwork
To welcome in sweet May Day!”
And then she bowed and curtsied,
Turned a cartwheel on the spot,
While all the people laughed and cheered
For Milly Mollycot.
Illustrated by Phyllis Luch