aright
Nowe kithe thy engine and thy might!
* * * * * *
But, as I slept, me mette I was
Within a temple ymade of glas,
In which there were mo images
Of gold, standing in sundry stages,
Sette in mo rich tabernacles,
And with perrie mo pinnacles,
And mo curious portraitures,
And queint manner of figures
Of gold worke, than I saw ever.
But all the men that been on live
Ne han the conning to descrive
The beaute of that ilke place,
Ne couden casten no compace
Soch another for to make,
That might of beauty be his make;
Ne so wonderly ywrought,
That it astonieth yet my thought,
And maketh all my witte to swinke
On this castel for to thinke,
So that the wondir great beautie
Caste, crafte, and curiositie,
Ne can I not to you devise,
My witte ne may not me suffise;
But nathelesse all the substaunce
I have yet in my remembraunce,
For why? Me thoughtin, by saint Gile,
All was of stone of berile,
Bothe the castel and the toure,
And eke the hall, and every boure;
Without peeces or joynings,
But many subtell compassings,
As barbicans and pinnacles,
Imageries and tabernacles;
I saw, and ful eke of windowes
As flakes fallen in great snowes;
And eke in each of the pinnacles
Weren sundry habitacles.
When I had seene all this sight
In this noble temple thus,
Hey, Lord, thought I, that madest us,
Yet never saw I such noblesse
Of images, nor such richesse
As I see graven in this church,
But nought wote I who did them worche,
Yet certaine as I further passe,
I wol you all the shape devise.
Yet I ententive was to see,
And for to poren wondre low,
If I could anywise yknow
What manner stone this castel was:
For it was like a limed glas,
But that it shone full more clere,
But of what congeled matere
It was, I n' iste redely,
But at the last espied I,
And found that it was every dele
A thing of yse and not of stele:
Thought I, "_By Saint Thomas of Kent,_
_This were a feeble foundement_
_To builden on a place so hie;_
_He ought him little to glorifie_
_That hereon bilte, God so me save._"
But, Lord, so faire it was to shewe,
For it was all with gold behewe:
Lo, how should I now tell all this,
Ne of the hall eke what need is?
But in I went, and that anone,
There met I crying many one
"A larges, a larges, hold up well!
God save the Lady of this pe