"Begin you the stave, reverend Sir," cried they all; "and never didthe woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole shall sendup!"Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched withpractised minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket, insuch a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the Maypole quivered to thesound. But the May Lord, he of the gilded staff, chancing to look intohis Lady's eyes, was wonder struck at the almost pensive glance thatmet his own.
"Edith, sweet Lady of the May," whispered he reproachfully, "is yonwreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves, that you look sosad? O, Edith, this is our golden time! Tarnish it not by anypensive shadow of the mind; for it may be that nothing of futuritywill be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now passing.""That was the very thought that saddened me! How came it in yourmind too?" said Edith, in a still lower tone than he, for it washigh treason to be sad at Merry Mount. "Therefore do I sigh amidthis festive music. And besides, dear Edgar, I struggle as with adream, and fancy that these shapes of our jovial friends arevisionary, and their mirth unreal, and that we are no true Lord andLady of the May. What is the mystery in my heart?"Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a littleshower of withering rose leaves from the Maypole. Alas, for theyoung lovers! No sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion thanthey were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in theirformer pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of inevitable change.
From the moment that they truly loved, they had subjected themselvesto earth's doom of care and sorrow, and troubled joy, and had nomore a home at Merry Mount. That was Edith's mystery. Now leave we thepriest to marry them, and the masquers to sport round the Maypole,till the last sunbeam be withdrawn from its summit, and the shadows ofthe forest mingle gloomily in the dance. Meanwhile, we may discoverwho these gay people were.
Two hundred years ago, and more, the old world and itsinhabitants became mutually weary of each other. Men voyaged bythousands to the West: some to barter glass beads, and such likejewels, for the furs of the Indian hunter; some to conquer virginempires; and one stern band to pray. But none of these motives hadmuch weight with the colonists of Merry Mount. Their leaders weremen who had sported so long with life, that when Thought and Wisdomcame, even these unwelcome guests were led astray by the crowd ofvanities which they should have put to flight. Erring Thought andperverted Wisdom were made to put on masques, and play the fool. Themen of whom we speak, after losing the heart's fresh gayety,imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither to act outtheir latest day-dream. They gathered followers from all that giddytribe whose whole life is like the festal days of soberer men. Intheir train were minstrels, not unknown in London streets: wanderingplayers, whose theatres had been the halls of noblemen; mummers,rope-dancers, and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes,church ales, and fairs; in a word, mirth makers of every sort, such asabounded in that age, but now began to be discountenanced by the rapidgrowth of Puritanism. Light had their footsteps been on land, and aslightly they came across the sea. Many had been maddened by theirprevious troubles into a gay despair; others were as madly gay inthe flush of youth, like the May Lord and his Lady; but whatever mightbe the quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at MerryMount. The young deemed themselves happy. The elder spirits, if theyknew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet followed thefalse shadow wilfully, because at least her garments glitteredbrightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not ventureamong the sober truths of life not even to be truly blest.
All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplantedhither. The King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord ofMisrule bore potent sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled wholeacres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the blaze allnight, crowned with garlands, and throwing flowers into the flame.
At harvest time, though their crop was of the smallest, they made animage with the sheaves of Indian corn, and wreathed it with autumnalgarlands, and bore it home triumphantly. But what chieflycharacterized the colonists of Merry Mount was their veneration forthe Maypole. It has made their true history a poet's tale. Springdecked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh green boughs;Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliageof the forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and yellowgorgeousness which converts each wildwood leaf into a paintedflower; and Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round withicicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozensunbeam. Thus each alternate season did homage to the Maypole, andpaid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries dancedround it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called ittheir religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff ofMerry Mount.
