“Poete My Maister Chaucer.”[A]

SOMEWHERE, sometime, I walked a field wherein The daisies held high festival in white, Thinking: Alas! he with a young delight Among them once his golden web did spin; He who made half-divine an olden inn, The Tabard; sung of Ariadne bright, And penned of Sarra’s king at fall of night, “Where now I leave, there will I fresh begin.” Then straightway heard I merry laughter rise From one that wrote, thrown on a daisy-bed, Who, seeing the two-fold wonder in mine eyes, Spake, lifting up his fair and reverend head: “Child! this is the earth-completing Paradise, And thou, that strayest here, art centuries dead.”

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Lydgate so calls him,

. . . . “of righte and equitie, Since he in Englishe in rhyming was the beste.”

MOUNT AUBURN IN MAY.

THIS is earth’s liberty-day: Yonder the linden-trees sway To music of winds from the west, And I hear the old merry refrain, Of the stream that has broken its chain By the gates of the City of Rest,

The City whose exquisite towers I see thro’ the sunny long hours If but from my window I lean; Yea, dearest! thy threshold of stone, Thine ivy-grown door and my own Have naught save the river between.

Thine on that heavenly height Are beauty, and warmth, and delight; And long as our parting shall be, Live there in thy summer! nor know How near lie the frost and the snow On hearts that are breaking for thee.