Such were the colonists of Merry Mount as they stood in the broad smile of sunset round their venerated Maypole . Had a wanderer bewildered in the melancholy forest heard their mirth and stolen a half-affrighted glance , he might have fancied them the crew of Comus , some already transformed to brutes , some midway between man and beast , and the others rioting in the flow of tipsy jollity that foreran the change ; but a band of Puritans who watched the scene , invisible themselves , compared the masques to those devils and ruined souls with whom their superstition peopled the black wilderness . Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple-and-golden cloud . One was a youth in glistening apparel with a scarf of the rainbow pattern crosswise on his breast . His right hand held a gilded staff -- the ensign of high dignity among the revellers -- and his left grasped the slender fingers of a fair maiden not less gayly decorated than himself . Bright roses glowed in contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each , and were scattered round their feet or had sprung up spontaneously there . Behind this lightsome couple , so close to the Maypole that its boughs shaded his jovial face , stood the figure of an English priest , canonically dressed , yet decked with flowers , in heathen fashion , and wearing a chaplet of the native vine leaves . By the riot of his rolling eye and the pagan decorations of his holy garb , he seemed the wildest monster there , and the very Comus of the crew . `` 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 XXXXX such a merry peal as we of the Maypole shall send up . ''
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