Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Chaucer and Windsor
By Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)L
Chivalric times, and long shall live around
Thy Castle the old oaks of British birth,
Whose gnarléd roots, tenacious and profound,
As with a lion’s talons grasp the ground.
But should thy towers in ived ruin rot,
There ’s one, thine inmate once, whose strain renowned
Would interdict thy name to be forgot;
For Chaucer loved thy bowers and trode this very spot.
Chaucer! our Helicon’s first fountain-stream,
Our morning star of song,—that led the way
To welcome the long-after coming beam
Of Spenser’s light and Shakespeare’s perfect day
Old England’s fathers live in Chaucer’s lay,
As if they ne’er had died. He grouped and drew
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay,
That still they live and breathe in Fancy’s view,
Fresh beings fraught with truth’s imperishable hue.