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 of a venerable he-goat . There was the likeness of a bear erect , brute in all but his hind legs , which were adorned with pink silk stockings . And here , again , almost as wondrous , stood a real bear of the dark forest , lending each of his forepaws to the grasp of a human hand and as ready for the dance as any in that circle . His inferior nature rose halfway to meet his companions as they stooped . Other faces wore the similitude of man or woman , but distorted or extravagant , with red noses pendulous before their mouths , which seemed of awful depth and stretched from ear to ear in an eternal fit of laughter . Here might be seen the salvage man -- well known in heraldry -- hairy as a baboon and girdled with green leaves . By his side -- a nobler figure , but still a counterfeit -- appeared an Indian hunter with feathery crest and wampum-belt . Many of this strange company wore foolscaps and had little bells appended to their garments , tinkling with a silvery sound responsive to the inaudible music of their gleesome spirits . Some youths and maidens were of soberer garb , yet well maintained their places in the irregular throng by the expression of wild revelry upon their features . 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 XXXXX his holy garb , he seemed the wildest monster there , and the very Comus of the crew .
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