A Temporary Preface to the Six-text Edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Part 1, Attempting to Show the True Order of the Tales, and the Days and Stages of the Pilgrimage

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Page 110 - Would that I Had but some portion of that mastery That from the rose-hung lanes of woody Kent Through these five hundred years such songs have sent To us, who, meshed within this smoky net Of unrejoicing labour, love them yet. And thou, O Master! — Yea, my Master still, Whatever feet have scaled Parnassus' hill, Since like thy measures, clear and sweet and strong, Thames...
Page 91 - And where he should cross himself, to be armed and to make himself strong to bear the cross with Christ, he crosseth himself to drive the cross from him, and blesseth himself with a cross from the cross ; and if he leave it undone, he thinketh it no small sin, and that God is highly displeased with him, and if any misfortune chance, thinketh it is therefore, which is also idolatry and not God's word.
Page 131 - Ladies the meaning hereof, which is this : They which honour the Flower, a thing fading with every blast, are such as look after beauty and worldly pleasure ; but they that honour the Leaf, which abideth with the root notwithstanding the frosts and winter storms, are they which follow virtue and during qualities without regard of worldly respects.
Page 30 - and in wordes fewe, Ost, of his craft somwhat I wil you schewe. I say, my lord can such a subtilite, (But al his craft ye may nought wite of me, And somwhat helpe I yit to his worchynge...
Page 111 - ... stream scarce fettered bore the bream along Unto the bastioned bridge, his only chain. O Master, pardon me, if yet in vain Thou art my Master, and I fail to bring Before men's eyes the image of the thing My heart is filled with : thou whose dreamy eyes Beheld the flush to Cressid's cheeks arise, 20 When Troilus rode up the praising street, As clearly as they saw thy townsmen meet Those who in vineyards of Poictou withstood The glittering horror of the steel-topped wood.

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