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The Maypole of Merry Mount

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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 dreamlike 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 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 fore paws to the

grasp of a human hand, and as ready for the dance as any in that circle. His inferior nature

rose half way, 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.

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Here might be seen the Savage Man, well known in heraldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled

with green leaves. By his side a noble 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 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 morris-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 to such a

merry peal as we of the Maypole shall send up!"

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Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched with practised minstrelsy, began

to play from a neighboring thicket, in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the

Maypole quivered to the sound. But the May Lord, he of the gilded staff, chancing to look

into his Lady's eyes, was wonder struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own.

"Edith, sweet Lady of the May," whispered he reproachfully, "is yon wreath of roses a

garland to hang above our graves, that you look so sad? O, Edith, this is our golden time!

Tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of the mind; for it may be that nothing of futurity will

be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now passing."

"That was the very thought that saddened me! How came it in your mind too?" said Edith,

in a still lower tone than he, for it was high treason to be sad at Merry Mount. "Therefore do

I sigh amid this festive music. And besides, dear Edgar, I struggle as with a dream, and

fancy that these shapes of our jovial friends are visionary, and their mirth unreal, and that

we are no true Lord and Lady of the May. What is the mystery in my heart?"

Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of withering rose

leaves from the Maypole. Alas, for the young lovers! No sooner had their hearts glowed

with real passion than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in their

former pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of inevitable change. From the moment that

they truly loved, they had subjected themselves to earth's doom of care and sorrow, and

troubled joy, and had no more a home at Merry Mount. That was Edith's mystery. Now

leave we the priest to marry them, and the masquers to sport round the Maypole, till the last

sunbeam be withdrawn from its summit, and the shadows of the forest mingle gloomily in

the dance. Meanwhile, we may discover who these gay people were.

Two hundred years ago, and more, the old world and its inhabitants became mutually weary

of each other. Men voyaged by thousands to the West: some to barter glass beads, and such

like jewels, for the furs of the Indian hunter; some to conquer virgin empires; and one stern

band to pray. But none of these motives had much weight with the colonists of Merry

Mount. Their leaders were men who had sported so long with life, that when Thought and

Wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led astray by the crowd of vanities

which they should have put to flight. Erring Thought and perverted Wisdom were made to

put on masques, and play the fool. The men of whom we speak, after losing the heart's fresh

gayety, imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither to act out their latest day-

dream. They gathered followers from all that giddy tribe whose whole life is like the festal

days of soberer men. In their train were minstrels, not unknown in London streets;

wandering players, whose theatres had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers,

and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word,

mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but now began to be

discountenanced by the rapid growth of Puritanism. Light had their footsteps been on land,

and as lightly they came across the sea. Many had been maddened by their previous troubles

into a gay despair; others were as madly gay in the flush of youth, like the May Lord and his

Lady; but whatever might be the quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at Merry

Mount. The young deemed themselves happy. The elder spirits, if they knew that mirth was

but the counterfeit of happiness, yet followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her

garments glittered brightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not venture among the

sober truths of life not even to be truly blest.

All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplanted hither. The King of Christmas

was duly crowned, and the Lord of Misrule bore potent sway. On the Eve of St. John, they

felled whole acres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned

with garlands, and throwing flowers into the flame. At harvest time, though their crop was

of the smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Indian corn, and wreathed it with

autumnal garlands, and bore it home triumphantly. But what chiefly characterized the

colonists of Merry Mount was their veneration for the Maypole. It has made their true

history a poet's tale. Spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh

green boughs; Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliage of the

forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and yellow gorgeousness which converts each

wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round

with icicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam. Thus each alternate

season did homage to the Maypole, and paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its

votaries danced round it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it their

religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of Merry Mount.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than those Maypole

worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of Puritans, most dismal

wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the

cornfield till evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand to

shoot down the straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the

old English mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the

heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast days, and their chief

pastime the singing of psalms. Woe to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance!

The selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the

stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan

Maypole.

A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult woods, each with a horseload of

iron armor to burden his footsteps, would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of

Merry Mount. There were the silken colonists, sporting round their Maypole; perhaps

teaching a bear to dance, or striving to communicate their mirth to the grave Indian; or

masquerading in the skins of deer and wolves, which they had hunted for that especial

purpose. Often, the whole colony were playing at blindman's buff, magistrates and all, with

their eyes bandaged, except a single scapegoat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by the

tinkling of the bells at his garments. Once, it is said, they were seen following a flower-

decked corpse, with merriment and festive music, to his grave. But did the dead man laugh?

In their quietest times, they sang ballads and told tales, for the edification of their pious

visitors; or perplexed them with juggling tricks; or grinned at them through horse collars;

and when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own stupidity, and began a

yawning match. At the very least of these enormities, the men of iron shook their heads and

frowned so darkly that the revellers looked up imagining that a momentary cloud had

overcast the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there. On the other hand, the Puritans

affirmed that, when a psalm was pealing from their place of worship, the echo which the

forest sent them back seemed often like the chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of

laughter. Who but the fiend, and his bond slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus

disturbed them? In due time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious on the

other as anything could be among such light spirits as had sworn allegiance to the Maypole.

The future complexion of New England was involved in this important quarrel. Should the

grizzly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners, then would their spirits

darken all the clime, and make it a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and

psalm forever. But should the banner staff of Merry Mount be fortunate, sunshine would

break upon the hills, and flowers would beautify the forest, and late posterity do homage to

the Maypole.

After these authentic passages from history, we return to the nuptials of the Lord and Lady

of the May. Alas! we have delayed too long, and must darken our tale too suddenly. As we

glance again at the Maypole, a solitary sunbeam is fading from the summit, and leaves only

a faint, golden tinge blended with the hues of the rainbow banner. Even that dim light is

now withdrawn, relinquishing the whole domain of Merry Mount to the evening gloom,

which has rushed so instantaneously from the black surrounding woods. But some of these

black shadows have rushed forth in human shape.

Yes, with the setting sun, the last day of mirth had passed from Merry Mount. The ring of

gay masquers was disordered and broken; the stag lowered his antlers in dismay; the wolf

grew weaker than a lamb; the bells of the morris-dancers tinkled with tremulous affright.

The Puritans had played a characteristic part in the Maypole mummeries. Their darksome

figures were intermixed with the wild shapes of their foes, and made the scene a picture of

the moment, when waking thoughts start up amid the scattered fantasies of a dream. The

leader of the hostile party stood in the centre of the circle, while the route of monsters

cowered around him, like evil spirits in the presence of a dread magician. No fantastic

foolery could look him in the face. So stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole

man, visage, frame, and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and thought, yet all

of one substance with his headpiece and breastplate. It was the Puritan of Puritans; it was

Endicott himself!

"Stand off, priest of Baal!" said he, with a grim frown, and laying no reverent hand upon the

surplice. "I know thee, Blackstone![1] Thou art the man who couldst not abide the rule even

of thine own corrupted church, and hast come hither to preach iniquity, and to give example

of it in thy life. But now shall it be seen that the Lord hath sanctified this wilderness for his

peculiar people. Woe unto them that would defile it! And first, for this flower-decked

abomination, the altar of thy worship!"

[1] Did Governor Endicott speak less positively, we should suspect a mistake here. The

Rev. Mr. Blackstone, though an eccentric, is not known to have been an immoral man. We

rather doubt his identity with the priest of Merry Mount.

And with his keen sword Endicott assaulted the hallowed Maypole. Nor long did it resist

his arm. It groaned with a dismal sound; it showered leaves and rosebuds upon the

remorseless enthusiast; and finally, with all its green boughs and ribbons and flowers,

symbolic of departed pleasures, down fell the banner staff of Merry Mount. As it sank,

tradition says, the evening sky grew darker, and the woods threw forth a more sombre

shadow

"There," cried Endicott, looking triumphantly on his work, "there lies the only Maypole in

New England! The thought is strong within me that, by its fall, is shadowed forth the fate of

light and idle mirth makers, amongst us and our posterity. Amen, saith John Endicott."

"Amen!" echoed his followers.

But the votaries of the Maypole gave one groan for their idol. At the sound, the Puritan

leader glanced at the crew of Comus, each a figure of broad mirth, yet, at this moment,

strangely expressive of sorrow and dismay.

"Valiant captain," quoth Peter Palfrey, the Ancient of the band, "what order shall be taken

with the prisoners?"

"I thought not to repent me of cutting down a Maypole," replied Endicott, "yet now I could

find in my heart to plant it again, and give each of these bestial pagans one other dance

round their idol. It would have served rarely for a whipping-post!"

"But there are pine-trees enow," suggested the lieutenant.

"True, good Ancient," said the leader. "Wherefore, bind the heathen crew, and bestow on

them a small matter of stripes apiece, as earnest of our future justice. Set some of the rogues

in the stocks to rest themselves, so soon as Providence shall bring us to one of our own

well-ordered settlements where such accommodations may be found. Further penalties,

such as branding and cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter."

"How many stripes for the priest?" inquired Ancient Palfrey.

"None as yet," answered Endicott, bending his iron frown upon the culprit. "It must be for

the Great and General Court to determine, whether stripes and long imprisonment, and

other grievous penalty, may atone for his transgressions. Let him look to himself! For such

as violate our civil order, it may be permitted us to show mercy. But woe to the wretch that

troubleth our religion."

"And this dancing bear," resumed the officer. "Must he share the stripes of his fellows?"

"Shoot him through the head!" said the energetic Puritan. "I suspect witchcraft in the beast."

"Here be a couple of shining ones," continued Peter Palfrey, pointing his weapon at the

Lord and Lady of the May. "They seem to be of high station among these misdoers.

Methinks their dignity will not be fitted with less than a double share of stripes."

Endicott rested on his sword, and closely surveyed the dress and aspect of the hapless pair.

There they stood, pale, downcast, and apprehensive. Yet there was an air of mutual support

and of pure affection, seeking aid and giving it, that showed them to be man and wife, with

the sanction of a priest upon their love. The youth, in the peril of the moment, had dropped

his gilded staff, and thrown his arm about the Lady of the May, who leaned against his

breast, too lightly to burden him, but with weight enough to express that their destinies

were linked together, for good or evil. They looked first at each other, and then into the

grim captain's face. There they stood, in the first hour of wedlock, while the idle pleasures,

of which their companions were the emblems, had given place to the sternest cares of life,

personified by the dark Puritans. But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and

high as when its glow was chastened by adversity.

"Youth," said Endicott, "ye stand in an evil case thou and thy maiden wife. Make ready

presently, for I am minded that ye shall both have a token to remember your wedding day!"

"Stern man," cried the May Lord, "how can I move thee? Were the means at hand, I would

resist to the death. Being powerless, I entreat! Do with me as thou wilt, but let Edith go

untouched!"

"Not so," replied the immitigable zealot. "We are not wont to show an idle courtesy to that

sex, which requireth the stricter discipline. What sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken

bridegroom suffer thy share of the penalty, besides his own?"

"Be it death," said Edith, "and lay it all on me!"

Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woful case. Their foes were

triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their home desolate, the benighted wilderness

around them, and a rigorous destiny, in the shape of the Puritan leader, their only guide. Yet

the deepening twilight could not altogether conceal that the iron man was softened; he

smiled at the fair spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the inevitable blight of early

hopes.

"The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple," observed Endicott. "We will

see how they comport themselves under their present trials ere we burden them with

greater. If, among the spoil, there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put

upon this May Lord and his Lady, instead of their glistening vanities. Look to it, some of

you.

"And shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked Peter Palfrey, looking with abhorrence at the

lovelock and long glossy curls of the young man.

"Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion," answered the captain. "Then

bring them along with us, but more gently than their fellows. There be qualities in the

youth, which may make him valiant to fight, and sober to toil, and pious to pray; and in the

maiden, that may fit her to become a mother in our Israel, bringing up babes in better

nurture than her own hath been. Nor think ye, young ones, that they are the happiest, even

in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a Maypole!"

And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock foundation of New England,

lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the Maypole, and threw it, with his own

gauntleted hand, over the heads of the Lord and Lady of the May. It was a deed of

prophecy. As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was

their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more.

But as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so, in

the tie that united them, were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They

went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to

tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount.

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