He has understood in his own way, from an obvious suggestion, "loweth," to mean, maketh low, humbleth; whilst "afflict" is a ready turn for "maketh sick" of the glossary. But here Wordsworth cannot be in the right. For Chaucer is now busied with magnifying the kingdom of love by accumulated antitheses--high, low--sick, whole--wise, foolish--the wicked turns good, the proud shrink and fear--the God, at his pleasure, gladdens or grieves. The phrase under question must conform to the manner of the place where it appears. An opposition of meanings is indispensable. "Humble or afflict," which are both on one side, cannot be right. "Approveth or maketh sick," are on opposite sides, but will hardly pick one another out for antagonists. "Laugheth or sigheth," has the vividness and simplicity of Chaucer, the most exact contrariety matches them--and the two phenomena cannot be left out of a lover's enumeration. Chaucer says of his 'bosom's lord,' "And most his might he sheddeth ever in May"-- renowning here, as we saw that he does elsewhere, the whole month, as love's own segment of the zodiacal circle. The time of the poem itself is accordingly 'the thridde night of May.' Wordsworth has rendered, "But most his might he sheds _on the eve of May._" Why so? Is the approaching visitation of the power more strongly felt than the power itself in presence? Chaucer says distinctly the contrary, and why with a word lose, or obscure, or hazard the appropriation of the month entire, so conspicuous a tenet in the old poetical mind? And is Eve here taken strictly--the night before May-day, like the _Pervigilium Veneris_? Or loosely, on the verge of May, answerably to 'ayenes May' afterwards? To the former sense, we might be inclined to propose on the contrary part, "But sheds his might most on the morrow of May," _i.e._ in prose on May-day morning, consonantly to all the testimonies. Chaucer says that the coming-on of the love-month produces in the heart of the lover "A maner ease medled with grevaunce." That is to say, _a kind of_ joy or pleasure, (Fr. _aise_,) mixed with sadness. He insists, by this expression, upon the strangeness of the kind, peculiar to the willing sufferers under this unique passion, "love's pleasing smart." Did Wordsworth, by intention or misapprehension, leave out this turn of expression, by which, in an age less forward than ours in sentimental researches, Chaucer drew notice to the contradictory nature of the internal state which he described? As if Chaucer had said, "_al_ maner ese," Wordsworth says, "all kinds of pleasure mixed with sorrowing." In the next line he adds to the intuitions of his master, one of his own profound intuitions, if we construe aright-- "And longing of sweet thoughts that ever long."