`` Why do you tremble at me alone ? '' cried he , turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators . `` Tremble also at each other . Have men avoided me and women shown no pity and children screamed and fled only for my black veil ? What but the mystery which it obscurely typifies has made this piece of crape so awful ? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend , the lover to his best-beloved ; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator , loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin , -- then deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which I have lived and die . I look around me , and , lo ! on every visage a black veil ! '' While his auditors shrank from one another in mutual affright , Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow , a veiled corpse with a faint smile lingering on the lips . Still veiled , they laid him in his coffin , and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave . The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave , the burial-stone is moss-grown , and good Mr. Hooper 's face is dust ; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the black veil . THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT . There is an admirable foundation for a philosophic romance in the curious history of the early settlement of Mount Wollaston , or Merry Mount . In the slight sketch here attempted the facts recorded on the grave pages of our New England annalists have wrought themselves almost spontaneously into a sort of allegory . The masques , mummeries and festive customs described in the text are in accordance with the manners of the age . Authority on these points may be found in Strutt 's Book of English Sports and Pastimes . Bright were the days at Merry Mount when the Maypole was the banner-staff of that gay colony . They who reared it , should their banner be triumphant , were to pour sunshine over New England 's rugged hills and scatter flower-seeds throughout the soil . Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire . Midsummer eve had come , bringing deep verdure to the forest , and roses in her lap of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of spring .
But May , or her mirthful spirit , dwelt all the year round at Merry Mount , sporting with the summer months and revelling with autumn and basking in the glow XXXXX winter 's fireside .
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