When May isn't Mayn't

It is one of those days in New England. The kind James Russell Lowell must have meant when he wrote how a Northern spring "gits everythin' in tune/ An' gives one leap from aperl into June." Warmth. Sunshine. Green. A world can't be all bad when it offers benisons like this.

Of course, Lowell also wrote, just 118 years ago this month, that "half our May's so awfully like Mayn't." And we're prepared for more wet-blanket days like those at the first of the month.

But now, this minute, looking at the smile on the season's face, we resolve to remember it when the frowning skies come again. We know some people who can do this in the daily life of hassles and headlines, too.

Yes, we have another friend who says things like, "We had a great spring, one day last week." But a certain perspective is called for in the weather as in world events.

Just "when you 'most give up," as Lowell said, the fields are "full o'blossoms, leaves, an' birds."