clearness, shrewdness, ingenuous susceptibility, simplicity, ANTIQUITY!
A creative translator or imitator--Chaucer born again, a century and a
half later.

Let us see how Wordsworth deals with Chaucer in the first seven stanzas
of the Cuckoo and Nightingale.

"The god of love, a benedicite!
How mighty and how gret a lord is he,
For he can make of lowe hertes highe,
Of highe lowe, and like for to dye,
And harde hertes he can maken fre.

"And he can make, within a litel stounde,
Of seke folke, hole, freshe, and sounde,
Of hole folke he can maken seke,
And he can binden and unbinden eke
That he wol have ybounden or unbounde.

"To telle his might my wit may not suffice,
For he can make of wise folke ful nice,
For he may don al that he wol devise,
And lither folke to destroien vice,
And proude hertes he can make agrise.

"And shortly al that ever he wol he may,
Ayenes him dare no wight saye nay:
For he can glade and greve whom he liketh:
And whoso that he wol, he lougheth or siketh,
And most his might he shedeth ever in May.

"For every true gentle herte fre
That with him is or thinketh for to be
Ayenes May shal have now som stering,
Other to joie or elles to som mourning;
In no seson so moch as thinketh me.

"For whan they maye here the briddes singe,
And se the floures and the leves springe,
That bringeth into hire rememberaunce
A maner ese, medled with grevaunce,
And lusty thoughtes fulle of gret longinge.

"And of that longinge cometh hevinesse,
And therof groweth oft gret sekenesse,
Al for lackinge of that that they desire;
And thus in May ben hertes sette on fire,
So that they brennen forth in gret distresse."

WORDSWORTH.

"The God of love! Ah, benedicite,
How mighty and how great a lord is he,
For he of low hearts can make high, of high
He can make low and unto death bring nigh,
And hard hearts he can make them kind and free.

"Within a little time, as hath been found,
He can make sick folk whole, and fresh, and sound.
Them who are whole in body and in mind
He can make sick, bind can he and unbind
All that he will have bound, or have unbound.

"To tell his might my wit may not suffice,
Foolish men he can make them out of wise;
For he may do all that he will devise,
Loose livers he can make abate their vice,
And proud hearts can make tremble in a trice.

"In brief, the