With His Heavenly dew so sweet.

A branch of May we have brought you---"

Here came a pause and the chorus dropped into an uncertain murmur.
John Walden heard his garden gates swing back on their hinges, and a
shuffling crunch of numerous small feet on the gravel path.

"G'arn, Susie!" cried a shrill boy's voice--"If y'are leadin' us,
lead! G'arn!"

A sweet flute-like treble responded to this emphatic adjuration,
singing alone, clear and high,

"A branch of May---" and then all the other voices chimed in:

"A branch of May we have brought you
And at your door it stands,
'Tis but a sprout,
But 'tis budded out
By the work of our Lord's hands!"

And with this, a great crown of crimson and white blossoms, set on a
tall, gaily-painted pole and adorned with bright coloured ribbons,
came nid-nodding down the box-tree alley to the middle of the lawn
opposite Walden's study window, where it was quickly straightened up
and held in position by the eager hands of some twenty or thirty
children, of all sizes and ages, who, surrounding it at its base,
turned their faces, full of shy exultation towards their pastor,
still singing, but in more careful time and tune: