Playful Poems

by Unknown

“Four hot coals have we, which I will express:
Boasting, lying, anger, and covetousness.
These burning coals are common unto age,
Our old limbs well may stumble o’er the stage,
But will shall never fail us, that is sooth.
Still in my head was always a colt’s tooth,
As many a year as now is passed and done,
Since that my tap of life began to run.
For certainly when I was born, I trow,
Death drew the tap of life, and let it flow;
And ever since the tap so fast hath run,
That well-nigh empty now is all the tun.
The stream of life but drips from time to time;
The silly tongue may well ring out and chime
Of wretchedness, that passéd is of yore:
With aged folk, save dotage, there’s nought more.”

When that our Host had heard this sermoning,
He gan to speak as lordly as a king;
And said, “Why, what amounteth all this wit?
What! shall we speak all day of Holy Writ?
The devil can make a steward fit to preach,
Or of a cobbler a sailor, or a leech.
Say forth thy tale; and tarry not the time.
Lo Deptford! and the hour is half-way prime:
Lo Greenwich! there where many a shrew loves sin—
It were high time thy story to begin.”

“Now, fair sirs,” quoth this Oswald, the old Reve,
“I pray you all that you yourselves ne’er grieve,
Though my reply should somewhat fret his nose;
For lawful ’tis with force, force to oppose.
This drunken Miller hath informed us here
How that some folks beguiled a carpenter—
Perhaps in scorn that I of yore was one.
So, by your leave, him I’ll requite anon.
In his own churlish language will I speak,
And pray to Heaven besides his neck may break.
A small stalk in mine eye he sees, I deem,
But in his own he cannot see a beam.”

THE REVE’S TALE.

At Trumpington, near Cambridge, if you look,
There goeth a bridge, and under that a brook,
Upon which brook there stood a flour-mill;
And this is a known fact that now I tell.
A Miller there had dwelt for many a day;
As any peacock he was proud and gay.
He could pipe well, and fish, mend nets, to boot,
Turn cups with a lathe, and wrestle well, and shoot.
A Norman dirk, as brown as is a spade,
Hung by his belt, and eke a trenchant blade.
A jolly dagger bare he in his pouch:
There was no man, for peril, durst him touch.
A Sheffield clasp-knife lay within his hose.
Round was his face, and broad and flat his nose.
High and retreating was his bald ape’s skull:
He swaggered when the market-place was full.
There durst no wight a hand lift to resent it,
But soon, this Miller swore, he should repent it.

A thief he was, forsooth, of corn and meal,
A sly one, too, and used long since to steal.
Disdainful Simkin was he called by name.
A wife he had; of noble kin she came:
The rector of the town her father was.
With her he gave full many a pan of brass,
That Simkin with his blood should thus ally.
She had been brought up in a nunnery;
For Simkin ne’er would take a wife, he said,
Unless she were well tutored and a maid,
To carry on his line of yeomanry:
And she was proud and pert as is a pie.
It was a pleasant thing to see these two:
On holidays before her he would go,
With his large tippet bound about his head;
While she came after in a gown of red,
And Simkin wore his long hose of the same.
There durst no wight address her but as dame:
None was so bold that passed along the way
Who with her durst once toy or jesting play,
Unless he wished the sudden loss of life
Before Disdainful Simkin’s sword or knife.
(For jealous folk most fierce and perilous grow;
And this they always wish their wives to know.)
But since that to broad jokes she’d no dislike
She was as pure as water in a dyke,
And with abuse all filled and froward air.
She thought that ladies should her temper bear,
Both for her kindred and the lessons high
That had been taught her in the nunnery.

These two a fair and buxom daughter had,
Of twenty years; no more since they were wed,
Saving a child, that was but six months old;
A little boy in cradle rocked and rolled.
This daughter was a stout and well-grown lass,
With broad flat nose, and eyes as grey as glass.
Broad were her hips; her bosom round and high;
But right fair was she here—I will not lie.

The rector of the town, as she was fair,
A purpose had to make her his sole heir,
Both of his cattle and his tenement;
But only if she married as he meant.
It was his purpose to bestow her high,
Into some worthy blood of ancestry:
For holy Church’s good must be expended
On holy Church’s blood that is descended;
Therefore he would his holy Church honour,
Although that holy Church he should devour.

Great toll and fee had Simkin, out of doubt,
With wheat and malt, of all the land about,
And in especial was the Soler Hall—
A college great at Cambridge thus they call—
Which at this mill both wheat and malt had ground.
And on a day it suddenly was found,
Sick lay the Manciple of a malady;
And men for certain thought that he must die.
Whereon this Miller both of corn and meal
An hundred times more than before did steal;
For, ere this chance, he stole but courteously,
But now he was a thief outrageously.
The Warden scolded with an angry air;
But this the Miller rated not a tare:
He sang high bass, and swore it was not so!

There were two scholars young, and poor, I trow,
That dwelt within the Hall of which I say.
Headstrong they were and lusty for to play;
And merely for their mirth and revelry,
Out to the Warden eagerly they cry,
That be should let them, for a merry round,
Go to the mill and see their own corn ground,
And each would fair and boldly lay his neck
The Miller should not steal them half a peck
Of corn by sleight, nor by main force bereave.