but which retained its hold
on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock.
In the extracts we give from the poem, the measure is retained, but the
words modernized, so far as can be done without injuring the sense or
metre.

The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced,
as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many
readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote
it here.

"In a summer season,
When soft was the sun,
I shaped me into shrouds[3]
As I a shep[4] were;
In habit as an hermit
Unholy of works
Went wide in this world
Wonders to hear:
And on a May morwening
On Malvern hills
Me befell a ferly,[5]
Of fairy methought.
I was weary for-wandered,
And went me to rest
Under a broad bank
By a bourne's[6] side;
And as I lay and leaned,
And looked on the waters,
I slumbered into a sleeping
It swayed so merry."

The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming
monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the
humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not
only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society
in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the
toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what
wasteful men destroy; the mediaeval dandy, whose only employment is to
exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential
life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen
his trade,--

"As it seemeth in our sight
That such men thriveth."

There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and
idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and
palmers, who

"Went forth in their way
With many wise tales,
And had leave to lie
All their lives after";

counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to
live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their
religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious
bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and
burgesses, and bondmen also," with

"Bakers and brewers,
And butchers many;
Woollen websters,
And weavers of linen;
Tailors and tinkers,
And toilers in marke