In whom that God of bountee chees to won;
Thou humble and high over every creature,
Thou nobledest so fer forth our nature,
That no desdaine the maker had of kinde
His Son in blood and flesh to clothe and winde."
The Second Nonnes Tale, 15,504.
Traces of Chaucer's proficiency in Italian are discoverable in almost all his poems; but I shall conclude with two citations from The Assembly of Foules:
"The day gan failen, and the darke night,
That reveth beastes from hir businesse,
Berafte me my booke for lacke of light."