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 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 XXXXX the forest , and others , of still richer blush , which the colonists had reared from English seed .
In While amid at for into of on that to