In somer whan they grene ben.”
Never for one instant is the place quiet nor silent; it is always
“Filde ful of tydynges,
Other loude or of whisprynges;
And over alle the houses angles,
Ys ful of rounynges and of jangles,
Of werres, of pes, of mariages,
Of restes, of labour and of viages.”
War and peace, and love and travels, all this he was to make in after-time the subject of his “Canterbury Tales,” and he represents himself in this earlier poem as if coming to the well and spring of all tales, placed somewhere in the land of dreams and fancy, yet surrounded by people who were neither fanciful nor dreamy creatures, but bony beings, on the contrary, with strong muscles and alert tongues, and the dust of the road to Rome or the East on their feet; surrounded, in fact, by these very roamers we are now trying to call up one by one from the past, and who receive in the “House of Fame” such an apotheosis as befits their quaint if rather questionable character. Good Chaucer {226} lends a willing ear, and the ways of speech of these people are carefully preserved in his verse for those who after him may find interest in them. In this manner they spoke: every person, says the poet,
“Every wight that I saugh there