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Hellow! May is (almost) here! And I’ve got my birthday coming up, maybe that’s why I’m always so excited about this particular month.

In the honor of it being my birthday month, I’ve compiled this collection of all poems about May that remind you of the freedom, love, laughter, beauty, youth and energy that’s brimming over the top during this month.

Early mornings, heated afternoons and cool nights, May is magical and you absolutely can’t convince me otherwise. Let’s kick off this post full of May poems to soothe your soul.

At last came the golden month of the wild folk– honey-sweet May, when the birds come back, and the flowers come out, and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year.

-Samuel Scoville Jr., Wild Folk

Poems About May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.

-May, Christina Rossetti

A delicate fabric of bird song
  Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
  Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple
  Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
  The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by
  Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
  The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure
  I shall see again
The world on the first of May
  Shining after the rain?

-'May Day', by Sara Teasdale

Oh to have you in May,    
To talk with you under the trees, 
Dreaming throughout the day,    
Drinking the wine-like breeze, 
 
Oh it were sweet to think    
That May should be ours again,  
Hoping it not, I shrink,    
Out of the sight of men.  

May brings the flowers to bloom,  
It brings the green leaves to the tree,  
And the fatally sweet perfume,    
Of what you once were to me.

-'In May', by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"MAY" 
What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die. I knelt on the road and stared. Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to the unexpected slimness of a neck. The body itself was thick, tense, electric. Clearly this wasn’t black snake looking down from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, or the garter, whizzing over the rocks. Where these had, oh, such shyness, this one had none. When I moved a little, it turned and clamped its eyes on mine; then it kerked toward me. I jumped back and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into the dark. My heart was pounding. I stood a while, listening to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars. After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.

-From 'Devotions', by Mary Oliver 

But why should the daffodils and tulips
Get all the praise and blessings?
My rebirth goes unnoticed- I am worthy
Of smiles and dazzled cries of worship.

-Lea Malot, Coffins & Rhinestones

On a sunny brae alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
With her young lover, June.

From her mother's heart seemed loath to part
That queen of bridal charms,
But her father smiled on the fairest child
He ever held in his arms.

The trees did wave their plumy crests,
The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
Was only sullen there!

There was not one, but wished to shun
My aspect void of cheer;
The very gray rocks, looking on,
Asked, "What do you here?"

And I could utter no reply;
In sooth, I did not know
Why I had brought a clouded eye
To greet the general glow.

So, resting on a heathy bank,
I took my heart to me;
And we together sadly sank
Into a reverie.

We thought, "When winter comes again,
Where will these bright things be?
All vanished, like a vision vain,
An unreal mockery!

"The birds that now so blithely sing,
Through deserts, frozen dry,
Poor spectres of the perished spring,
In famished troops will fly.

"And why should we be glad at all?
The leaf is hardly green,
Before a token of its fall
Is on the surface seen!"

Now, whether it were really so,
I never could be sure;
But as in fit of peevish woe,
I stretched me on the moor,

A thousand thousand gleaming fires
Seemed kindling in the air;
A thousand thousand silvery lyres
Resounded far and near:

Methought, the very breath I breathed
Was full of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
By that celestial shine!

And, while the wide earth echoing rung
To that strange minstrelsy
The little glittering spirits sung,
Or seemed to sing, to me:

"O mortal! mortal! let them die;
Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
With universal joy!

"Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day.

"To thee the world is like a tomb,
A desert's naked shore;
To us, in unimagined bloom,
It brightens more and more!

"And, could we lift the veil, and give
One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
Because they live to die."

The music ceased; the noonday dream,
Like dream of night, withdrew;
But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem
Her fond creation true.

-A Day Dream, by Emily Brontë

Then you have to remember to be thankful; but in May one simply can’t help being thankful . . . that they are alive, if for nothing else. I feel exactly as Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden before the trouble began.

-L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables, #2)

In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart. It usually happened as the sun was going down. In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and wait for it to pass. And it would pass –but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind.

-Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

The last days of May are among the longest of the year.

-Alice Munro, What is Remembered

So, these were the poems about May! Which one did you like best?

Finds more poems to read catering to your taste!

Poems about Girlhood

Poems about Motherhood

Poems about Life and Hope

Poems about Summer