`` Votaries of the Maypole , '' cried the flower-decked priest , `` merrily all day long have the woods echoed to your mirth . But be this your merriest hour , my hearts ! Lo ! here stand the Lord and Lady of the May , whom I , a clerk of Oxford and high priest of Merry Mount , am presently to join in holy matrimony . -- Up with your nimble spirits , ye morrice-dancers , green men and glee-maidens , bears and wolves and horned gentlemen ! Come ! a chorus now rich with the old mirth of Merry England and the wilder glee of this fresh forest , and then a dance , to show the youthful pair what life is made of and how airily they should go through it ! -- All ye that love the Maypole , lend your voices to the nuptial song of the Lord and Lady of the May ! '' This wedlock was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount , where jest and delusion , trick and fantasy , kept up a continual carnival . The Lord and Lady of the May , though their titles must be laid down at sunset , were really and truly to be partners for the dance of life , beginning the measure that same bright eve . The wreath of roses that hung from the lowest green bough of the Maypole had been twined for them , and would be thrown over both their heads in symbol of their flowery union . When the priest had spoken , therefore , a riotous uproar burst from the rout of monstrous figures . `` Begin you the stave , reverend sir , '' cried they all , `` and never did the woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole shall send up . '' Immediately a prelude of pipe , cittern and viol , touched with practised minstrelsy , began to play from a neighboring thicket in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the Maypole quivered to the sound . But the May-lord -- he of the gilded staff -- chancing to look into his lady 's eyes , was wonder-struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own . `` Edith , sweet Lady of the May , '' whispered he , reproachfully , `` is yon wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves that you look so sad ? Oh , Edith , this is our golden time . Tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of the mind , for it may be that nothing of futurity will be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now passing . '' `` That was the very thought that saddened me . How came it in your mind too ? ''
said Edith , XXXXX a still lower tone than he ; for it was high treason to be sad at Merry Mount .
at by for from in of though through to with