"Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Maypole of Merry Mount" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

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