Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

TO HIS EMPTY PURSE.

To you, my purse, and to none other wight Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere;

I am sorry now that ye be light,

For certes ye now make me heavy cheer;

Me were as lefé laid upon a bere
For which unto your mercie thus I crie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

Now vouchsafe this or it be night,
That I of you the blissful sowne may here,
Or see your color like the sunné bright,
That of yelowness had never pere.

Ye be my life, ye be my herté's stere,
Queene of comfort aud of good companie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

Now purse that art to me my live's light
And saviour, as downe in this world here,
Out of this towné helpe me by your might,
Sith that you woll not be my treasure.
For I am shave as nere as any frere,
But I pray unto your curtesie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.

THE PARSON.

A good man there was of religioun,
That was a pooré Parson of a town;
But rich he was of holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Christés gospel truély would preach;
His parishens devoutly would he teach.
Benign he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversity full patient;
And such he was y-provéd' ofté sithés,2
Full loth were him to cursen for his tithés ;
But rather would he given, out of doubt,
Unto his pooré parishens about,

Of his offring and eke of his substance;
He couth in little thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder;
But he ne lefte not, for rain ne thunder,
In sickness nor in mischief to visite

The furthest in his parish, much and lite,*

1 Y is the old English prefix of the past participle; Saxon and German ge.

2 Oftentimes.

3 The e ori of the plural in old poetry is always sounded when the verse requires it.

4 Great and small.

Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.
This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf,1
That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
Out of the gospel he the wordés caught,
And this figure he added eke thereto,-
That, if gold rusté, what should iron do?
For, if a priest be foul on whom we trust,
No wonder is a lewéd man to rust.

3

He was a shepherd, and no mercenary;
And, though he holy were and virtuous,
He was to sinful man not dispitous,
Ne of his speeché dangerous ne digne,*
But in his teaching discreet and benign.
To drawen folk to heaven by fairness
By good ensample, this was his business.
But, it were any person obstinate,
What so he were, of high or low estate,
Him would he snibben' sharply for the nonés.
A better priest I trow there nowhere none is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne makéd him a spicéd' conscience;
But Christés lore and his apostles twelve
He taught, but first he followd it himselve.

GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER.

In one of the Cottonian MSS. (among those destroyed by fire) this poem was described as made by Chaucer "upon his deathbed, in his great anguish." The versions differ considerably.

Fly fro the press aud dwell with soothfastness;
Suffice unto thy good though it be small;
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness,'
Press hath envy, and weal is blent over-all.
Savour no more than thee behové" shall.
Rede well thyself that other folk caust rede;
And Truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.13

[blocks in formation]

That thee is sent, receive in buxomness;'

The wrastling of this world asketh a fall. Here is no home, here is but wilderness.

Forth, pilgrim! Forth, beast, out of thy stall! Look up on high, and thanké God of all. Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lead; And Truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.

Gower.-Barbour.-Lydgate.

Contemporary with Chaucer, but several years his junior, was John Gower (1325-1408), a wealthy "esquire" of Kent. The grave and sententious turn of his poetry won for him from Chaucer and others the appellation of the "Moral Gower," which has become almost a synonyme for dulness. He gives little evidence of the genuine afflatus.

The Scottish poet, John Barbour, born about the year 1316, grew up in the midst of exciting political events. He was archdeacon of Aberdeen, and in 1375, when Robert III. had been king five years, he was occupied in writing a metrical history, called "The Bruce," of Robert I. It is in the octosyllabic rhymed couplet of the old romances, and is ranked as authentic history.

The most notable of Chaucer's younger contempora ries was John Lydgate (1373-1460). He was named from his birth in Suffolk, at the village of Lydgate, and became a Benedictine monk.. His "Ballad of London Lyckpenny," relating the ill success of a poor countryman in the London Courts of Law, is a remarkable specimen of humorous verse. Both Gray and Coleridge seem to have been impressed by the merits of Lydgate.

MEDEA GATHERING HERBS.
GOWER.

Thus it fell upon a night,

When there was naught but starrie light,
She was vanished right as she list,
That no wight but herself wist,
And that was at midnight tide.
The world was still on every side.
With open hand and foot all bare;
Her hair too spread, she 'gan to fare;
Upon her clothés girt she was,
And spechéless, upon the grass,
She glode forth, as an adder doth.

FREEDOM. BARBOUR.

Ab, Freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes man to have liking;3

8 Truth.

10 Blind.

12 Counsel.

15 Judge.

[blocks in formation]

Freedom all solace to man gives;
He lives at ease that freely lives!
A noble heart may have nane ease,
Ne ellis nocht' that may him please,
Gif freedom faileth; for free liking
Is yearned' o'er all other thing;
Nor he that aye has lived free

May nocht know well the property,3
The anger, ne the wretched doom
That is couplit to foul thirldom.
But, gif he had assayed it,

Then all perquere he should it wit,
And should think freedom mair to prize
Than all the gold in the warld that is.

[blocks in formation]

I got not a mum of his mouth for my meed. And for lack of Money I might not speed.

Unto the Rolls I gat me from thence,
Before the clerkés of the Chancerie,
Where many I found earning of pence,
But none at all once regarded me.

I gave them my plaint upon my knee;
They liked it well when they had it read,
But lacking Money I could not be sped.

In Westminster Hall I found out one
Which went in a long gown of ray;1

I crouched and kneeled before him; anon,
For Mary's love, for help I him pray.
"I wot not what thou mean'st," gan he say;
To get me thence he did me bede;
For lack of Money I could not speed.

Within this Hall, neither rich nor yet poor
Would do for me aught although I should die:
Which seeing, I got me out of the door
Where Flemings began on me for to cry,
"Master, what will you copen' or buy?
Fine felt hats, or spectacles to read?

Lay down your silver, and here you may speed."

Then I conveyed me into Kent;

For of the law would I meddle no more, Because no man to me took intent,

I dight me to do as I did before.

Now Jesus, that in Bethlehem was 'bore,
Save London, and send true lawyers their meed!
For whoso wants Money with them shall not
speed.

James J. of Scotland.

This Scottish prince (1394-1437) was intercepted at sea, and made prisoner by Henry IV. in 1405: During his captivity he produced one of the most graceful poems that exist in old English. The "King's Quhair" (that is, quire, or little book) has for its main incident the discovery of a lady walking in the prison garden, to whom he becomes attached. This beauty is supposed to have been Lady Jane Beaufort, who became his wife, and eventually Queen of Scotland, and mother of the royal line of the subsequent Stuarts. King James returned to Scotland after the death of Henry V., was crowned at Scone in 1424, and was for twelve years a wise ruler, endeavoring to establish law and order among turbulent nobles, and to assure the rights and liberties of his people; but his firm upholding of justice led to his assassination at Perth in 1437.

[blocks in formation]

THE CAPTIVE KING.

Whereas in ward full oft I would bewail
My deadly life, full of pain and penance,
Saying right thus, “What have I guilt1 to fail
My freedom in this world, and my pleasance?
Sin every wight has thereof suffisance
That I behold, and I a creäture

Put from all this, hard is mine aventure!

"The bird, the beast, the fish eke in the sea, They live in freedom, every in his kind, And I a man, and lacketh liberty;

What shall I sayn, what reason may I find, That Fortune should do so?" Thus in my mind My folk' I would argue, but all for nonght; Was none that might that on my painés rought!3

Robert Henryson.

Henryson (circa 1425-1507) was the oldest of an important group of Scottish poets, who, at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, "were filling the North country with music." Admitted in 1462 to the newly-founded University of Glasgow, he became notary public and school-master at Dunfermline. In his lifetime the art of printing first came into use in England. He was a writer of ballads; and his "Robin and Mawkin" is one of the best early specimens of pastoral verse. He also wrote a metrical version of Æsop's Fables.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Among the principal successors of Henryson were William Dunbar (circa 1460-1520), John Skelton (1460 ?-1529), Gavin Douglas (1475-1522), Sir David Lyndsay (14901557), and Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), who translated many of the Sonnets of Petrarch. He became M. A. of Cambridge at seventeen; was made a gentleman of King Henry VIII.'s bedchamber; was knighted in 1537; and went as ambassador to the Emperor Charles V. in Spain. In the winter of 1540-'41 he was in the Tower, charged with treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole. Acquitted in 1541, he was again befriended by the king; but in the autumn of 1542 he died of a fever, caught in riding fast through bad weather to meet an ambassador from Charles V.

PLEASURE MIXED WITH PAIN. Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen Bear flowers, we see, full fresh and fair of hue. Poison is also put in medicine,

And unto man his health doth oft renew. The fire that all things eke consumeth clean

May hurt and heal; then if that this be true, I trust sometime my harm may be my health, Since every woe is joinéd with some wealth.

OF DISSEMBLING WORDS. Throughout the world, if it were sought, Fair words enough a man shall find: They be good cheap; they cost right nought;

Their substance is but only wind.

But well to say, and so to mean,

That sweet accord is seldom seen.

FREE AT LAST.

Tangled I was in Lovés snare,

Oppressed with pain, torment with care,
Of grief right sure, of joy full bare,
Clean in despair by cruelty:
But ha! ha ha! full well is me,
For I am now at liberty.

The woful days so full of pain,
The weary night all spent in vain,
The labor lost for so small gain,

To write them all it will not be: But ha ha ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.

*

With feigned words which were but wind, To long delays I was assigned;

Her wily looks my wits did blind; Thus as she would I did agree: But ha ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.

Was never bird tangled in lime
That brake away in better time
Than I, that rotten boughs did climb,

And had no hurt, but scapéd free: Now ha! ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.

The son of the Duke of Norfolk, the victor of Flodden in 1513, Henry Howard (circa 1517-1546), was from his youth associated with the Court of Henry VIII. in the capacity of companion to the Duke of Richmond, a natural son of that prince. He was subsequently employed in high military commands. But the whole family of Howard fell under Henry's hatred, after the execution of Queen Catharine, Surrey's sister. He and his father were thrown into the Tower, and condemned on frivolous accusations. He was executed in 1546, the warrant for his death being one of the latest signed by Henry VIII., then upon his death-bed. Surrey was the first translator in blank verse of the Æneid of Virgil; he likewise introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into English literature.

HOW NO AGE IS CONTENT. Laid in my quiet bed,

In study as I were,

I saw within my troubled head
A heap of thoughts appear;
And every thought did show

So lively in mine eyes,

That now I sighed, and then I smiled,

As cause of thought did rise.

I saw the little boy,

In thought how oft that he Did wish of God to 'scape the rod, A tall young man to be: The young man eke, that feels

His bones with pains opprest, How he would be a rich old man, To live and lie at rest.

The rich old man that sees

His end draw on so sore, How he would be a boy again, To live so much the more;

« НазадПродовжити »