A good man there was of religion,
That was a poor PARSONE of a town;
But rich he was in holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Christe's gospel truely would preach.
His parishens devoutly would he teach,
Benigne he was and wondrous diligent,
And in adversity full patient :

And such he was yproved often times;
Full loth were he to cursen for his tithes,
But rather would he given, out of doubt,
Unto his poor parishioners about,
Of his offering, and eke of his substance;
He could in little thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder,
But he nor felt nor thought of rain or thunder,
In sickness and in mischief to visit
The farthest in his parish, much and oft,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.
This noble ensample to his sheep he gave,
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.
Out of the gospel he the wordes caught,
And this figure he added yet thereto,
That if gold rust, what sholde iron do?
And if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder if a common man do rust;
Well ought a priest ensample for to give,
By his cleannesse, how his sheep should live.
He sette not his benefice to hire,
Or left his sheep bewildered in the mire,
And ran unto London, unto Saint Paul's,
To seeken him a chanterie for souls,
Or with a brotherhood to be withold;
But dwelt at home, and kept well his fold,
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry.
He was a shepherd and no mercenarie,
And though he holy were, and virtuous,
He was to sinful men not dispiteous,
Nor of his speech dangerous nor high,
But in his teaching discrete and benigne.
To draw his folk to heaven, with fairness,
By good ensample, was his business :
But if were any person obstinate,
Whether he were of high or low estate,
Him would he reprove sharply for the nones,
A better priest I trow that nowhere is.
He waited after neither pomp ne reverence,
Nor maked him no spiced conscience,
But Christe's lore and his Apostles twelve
He taught, but first he followed it himselve.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

ON SOME SKULLS

IN BEAULEY ABBEY NEAR INVERNESS.

IN silent, barren synod met

Within these roofless walls, where yet

The severed arch and carved fret
Cling to the ruin,

The brethren's skulls mourn, dewy wet,
Their creed's undoing.

The mitered ones of Nice and Trent
Were not so tongue-tied; no, they went
Hot to their councils, scarce content
With orthodoxy;

But ye, poor tongueless things, were meant
To speak by proxy.

Your chronicles no more exist,
For Knox, the revolutionist,
Destroyed the work of every fist
That scrawled black-letter;
Well! I'm a craniologist,

And may do better.

His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And prayed him, "If they pay this tax, they
starve."

Whereat he stared, replying, half amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these?" "But I would die," said she.

He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then filliped at the diamond in her car;
"O, ay, ay, ay, you talk!" "Alas!" she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answered, "Ride you naked through the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut and window barred.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Half dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head,
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazoned with armorial gold.

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listened round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouthed heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors through her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flowered elder-thicket from the field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peeped but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shriveled into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused ; And she, that knew not, passed and all at once,

With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless

noon

Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers,
One after one but even then she gained
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crowned,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

PEACE IN ACADIE.

FROM "EVANGELINE."

IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand

Pré

Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,

Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.

Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,

Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates

Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.

West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields

Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward

Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains

Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.

There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.

Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,

Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries. Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting

Over the basement below protected and shaded

the doorway.

There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset

Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles

Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden

Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors