Pearl pleasant to princes’ pleasure,
To clanly clos in golde so clere
Most neatly set in gold so clear.
Of her death he says:
Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere
Alas! I lost her in an arbour,
Þurȝ gresse to grounde hit fro me yot
Through grass to ground it from me got. —([p. 1].)
The writer then represents himself as visiting his child’s grave (or arbour) in the “high season of August,” and giving way to his grief ([p. 2]). He falls asleep, and in a dream is carried toward a forest, where he saw rich rocks gleaming gloriously, hill sides decked with crystal cliffs, and trees the leaves of which were as burnished silver. The gravel under his feet was “precious pearls of orient,” and birds “of flaming hues” flew about in company, whose notes were far sweeter than those of the cytole or gittern (guitar) ([p. 3]). The dreamer arrives at the bank of a stream, which flows over stones (shining like stars in the welkin on a winter’s night) and pebbles of emeralds, sapphires, or other precious gems, so
Þat all the loȝe lemed of lyȝt