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 of winter 's fireside . Through a world of toil and care she flitted with a dream-like smile , and came hither to find a home among the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount . Never had the Maypole been so gayly decked as at sunset on Midsummer eve . This venerated emblem was a pine tree which had preserved the slender grace of youth , while it equalled the loftiest height of the old wood-monarchs . From its top streamed a silken banner colored like the rainbow . Down nearly to the ground the pole was dressed with birchen boughs , and others of the liveliest green , and some with silvery leaves fastened by ribbons that fluttered in fantastic knots of twenty different colors , but no sad ones . Garden-flowers and blossoms of the wilderness laughed gladly forth amid the verdure , so fresh and dewy that they must have grown by magic on that happy pine tree . Where this green and flowery splendor terminated the shaft of the Maypole was stained with the seven brilliant hues of the banner at its top . On the lowest green bough hung an abundant wreath of roses -- some that had been gathered in the sunniest spots of the forest , and others , of still richer blush , which the colonists had reared from English seed . O people of the Golden Age , the chief of your husbandry was to raise flowers ! But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the Maypole ? It could not be that the fauns and nymphs , when driven from their classic groves and homes of ancient fable , had sought refuge , as all the persecuted did , in the fresh woods of the West . These were Gothic monsters , though perhaps of Grecian ancestry .
On the shoulders of a comely youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag ; a second , human in all other points , had the grim visage of a wolf ; a third , still with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man , showed the beard and horns XXXXX a venerable he-goat .
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