Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Chaucer

By Lucy White Jennison (Owen Innsly) (b. 1850)

A LIMPID source, a clear and bubbling spring,

Born in some wooded dell unknown of heat,

Above whose breast the leafy branches meet

And kiss, and earthward wavering shadows fling;

Upon whose brink the perfumed flower-cups swing

’Neath the light tread of hurrying insect feet;

Such, Chaucer, seems the sturdy note and sweet

In thine unfettered song reëchoing.

Hence they who sometimes weary of the play

Of fountains and the artificial jets

Which in gay parks and gardens dance and leap,

Turn back again into that forest-way

Where thy fresh stream the grass and mosses wets

That slumber on its margin cool and deep.