"Is risen, and looketh on the merrie daye All for to do his observance to Maye,-- And to the grove of which that I you told, By aventure his way he gan to hold To maken him a garland of the greves, Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves, And loud he sung against the sunny sheen,-- 'O Maye with all thy flowers and thy green, Right welcome be thou, faire, freshe, Maye! I hope that I some green here getten may!" Smiling at the antique simplicity and freshness of the lines as they rang across his brain like the musical jingle of an old-world spinet, his ears suddenly caught the sound of young voices singing at a distance. "Here come the children!" he said; and stepping out from his open window into the garden, he again bent his ear to listen. The tremulous voices came nearer and nearer, and words could now be distinguished, breaking through the primitive quavering melody of 'The Mayers' Song' known to all the country side since the thirteenth century: "Remember us poor Mayers all.-- And thus do we begin, To lead our lives in righteousness, Or else we die in sin. We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day, And now returning back again, We bring you in the May. The hedges and trees they are so green, In the sunne's goodly heat, Our Heavenly Father He watered them 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: "The Heavenly gates are open wide, Our paths are beaten plain, And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again. The moon shines bright and the stars give light A little before it is day, So God bless you all, both great and small, And send you a merrie May!" II