In The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised.—Ed.
"In The Cuckoo and Nightingale, a poem of the third of May—a date corresponding to the mid-May, the very heart of May according to our modern reckoning—the poet after a wakeful night rises, and goes forth at dawn, and comes to a 'laund' or plain 'of white and green.'
Nothing seen but the short green grass and the white daisies,—grass and daisies being of equal height. Unfortunately in Tyrwhitt's text the description is nonsensical,'So feire oon had I nevere in bene,
The grounde was grene, y poudred with daysé,
The floures and the gras ilike al hie,
Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene.'The daisy flowers are as high as the groves! Wordsworth retained the groves, but refused to make daisies of equal height with them.'The flowres and the greves like hie.'
'Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover, All green and white; and nothing else was seen.'"
'So feire oon had I nevere in bene,
The grounde was grene, y poudred with daysé,
The floures and the gras ilike al hie,
Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene.'
'The flowres and the greves like hie.'
'Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover, All green and white; and nothing else was seen.'"
(Professor Dowden, in the Transactions of the Wordsworth Society. No. III.)—Ed.