Thursday 5 May 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot

from The General Prologue
to The Canterbury Tales

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eeek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen all the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for the seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engolond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Geoffrey Chaucer
(ca 1343 - 25th October 1400)

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