for his artless lay,
Nor in the Minster laid with high array;--
But where the May-thorn gleams, the grasses wave,
And the wind sighs o'er a forgotten grave.

Langland, whom I have put here in contrast with Chaucer, is said to have
lived between 1332 and 1400. His _Vision of Piers the Plowman_ (who is
partially identified with our blessed Saviour), with some added poems,
forms an allegory on life in England, in Church and State, as it appeared
to him during the dislocated and corrupt age which followed the
superficial glories of Edward the Third's earlier years.

_Took the toll_; Amongst other official employments, Chaucer was
Comptroller of the Customs in the Port of London. See his _House of
Fame_; and the beautiful picture of his walks at dawning in the daisy-
meadows: Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_.

_His of Certaldo, . . . in Scythia_; Boccaccio:--and Ovid, who died in
exile at Tomi:--to both of whom Chaucer is greatly indebted for the
substance of his tales.

_Picture-like_; 'It is chiefly as a comic poet, and a minute observer of
manners and circumstances, that Chaucer excels. In serious and moral
poetry he is frequently languid and diffuse, but he springs like Antaeus
from the earth when his subject changes to coarse satire or merry
narrative' (Hallam, _Mid. Ages_: Ch. IX: Pt. iii).

_The Tabard_; Inn in Southwark whence the pilgrims to Canterbury start.

_Down the Strand_; It is thus that Langland describes himself and his
feelings of dissatisfaction with the world.

_That worst woe_; Literature, even ancient literature, has no phrase more
deeply felt and pathetic than the words which the Persian nobleman at the
feast in Thebes before Plataea addressed to Thersander of
Orchomenus:--[Greek text]: (_Herodotus_, IX: xvi).

_One morn he lay_; The _Vision_ opens with a picture of the poet asleep
on Malvern Hill: the last of the added poems closing as he wakes with the
Easter chimes.

_Old measures_; Langland's metre 'is more uncouth than that of his
predecessors' (Hallam, _Mid. Ag_. Ch. IX: Pt. iii).

_In the Minster_; Chaucer was buried at the entrance of S. Benet's Chapel
in Westminster Abbey.

JEANNE D'ARC

1424

So many stars in heaven,--
Flowers in the meadow that shine;
--This little one of Domremy,
What special grace is thine?
By the fairy beech and the fountain
What but a child with thy brothers?
Among the maids of the valley
Art more than one among others?

Chosen dar