Geoffrey Chaucer

“ It stood as it were to the ground y-glued;
There may no man out of the place it drive
For no engine of windlass or polive;
And cause why, for they can not the craft;
And therefore in the place they have it laft,
Till that the knight hath taught them the mannere
To voide him, as ye shall after hear. ”

“ And ever-in-one alway she cried and shright;
And with her beak herselfe she so pight,
That there is no tiger, nor cruel beast,
That dwelleth either in wood or in forest;
But would have wept, if that he weepe could,
For sorrow of her; she shriek'd alway so loud.
For there was never yet no man alive,
If that he could a falcon well descrive ”

“ So like a gentle lover in mannere,
So ravish'd, as it seemed, for the joy,
That never Jason, nor Paris of Troy, --
Jason? certes, nor ever other man,
Since Lamech was, that alderfirst began
To love two, as write folk beforn,
Nor ever since the firste man was born,
Coulde no man, by twenty thousand
Counterfeit the sophimes of his art ”

“ And yet is glass nought like ashes of fern;
But for they have y-knowen it so ferne
Therefore ceaseth their jangling and their wonder.
As sore wonder some on cause of thunder,
On ebb and flood, on gossamer and mist,
And on all things, till that the cause is wist. ”

“ And took him by the hand, Saint John to borrow,
And said him thus; 'Lo, I am youres all;
Be such as I have been to you, and shall.'
What he answer'd, it needs not to rehearse;
Who can say bet than he, who can do worse? ”

“ Young, fresh, and strong, in armes desirous
As any bachelor of all his house.
A fair person he was, and fortunate,
And kept alway so well his royal estate,
That there was nowhere such another man. ”

“ Can in the space of one day naturel
(This is to say, in four-and-twenty hours) ,
Whereso you list, in drought or else in show'rs,
Beare your body into every place
To which your hearte willeth for to pace,
Withoute wem of you, through foul or fair. ”