WYCLIFFE

[To Chaucer.]

Friend, how seems it thee?

CHAUCER

Sir, with your pardon,

To me, our England is still “Merry England!”

Which nature cirqued with its green wall of seas

To be her home and hearth-stone; where no slave,

Though e’er he crept in her lap, was nursed of her;

But the least peasant, bow’d in lonely fief,