Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

*A-doun ful softely I gan to sinke;

*And, leninge on myn elbowe and my syde,

180

The longe day I shoop me for to abyde

*For nothing elles, and I shal nat lye,

But for to loke upon the dayesye,

*That wel by reson men hit calle may

*[The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day,']

185

*The emperice and flour of floures alle.