That is to sey, to singen and to rede,
As smal children do in thir childhede.
And among these children he describes one, “a widewe’s lytel sone,” whom his pious mother had taught whenever he saw an image of Christ’s Mother, to kneel down and say an Ave Maria; and he goes on to tell us how
This lytel childe, his litel boke lerning,
As he sate in the scole at his primere,
He Alma Redemptoris herde sing,
As children lerned the Antiphonere;
And as he derst, he drew him nere and nere
And herkened ay the wordes, and eke the note
Til he the first verse coulde al by rote.