Her mouth was sweet as bragot is or meath,
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast and upright as a bolt.
Again and again in Chaucer’s poems do we find such similitudes, and the result is always a picture of extraordinary precision and liveliness. Here, for example, are a few:
Gaylard he was as goldfinch in the shaw,
or,
Such glaring eyen had he as an hare;
or,
As piled (bald) as an ape was his skull.