We may think of them as gifts presented to the lyric lover by the Bride of Christ—well-chosen gifts; for were they not the ardent creations of her own early passion? Thus, side by side with such lyrics as the carol quoted above, we find in the Middle Ages charming little secular poems almost indistinguishable from them in tone and manner: Sweet rose of vertew and of gentilness, Delightsome lily of everie lustyness, Richest in bountie and in bewtie clear, And everie vertew that is wened dear, Except onlie that ye are mercyless. Into your garth this day I did pursew; There saw I flowris that fresh were of hew; Both white and red most lusty were to seene And halesome herbis upon stalkis greene; Yet leaf nor flowr find could I none of rew. I doubt that Merche, with his cauld blastis keene, Has slain this gentil herb, that I of mene; Whose piteous death does to my heart such paine That I would make to plant his root againe,— So comforting his leavis unto me bene. And along with the influx of Anglo-French words further semantic changes were, of course, taking place in the more important Old English words. If there are occasions when a single word seems to throw more light on the workings of men’s minds than a whole volume of history or a whole page of contemporary literature, the Middle English _love-longing_ is certainly one of them. A new element had entered into human relationships, for which perhaps the best name that can be found is ‘tenderness’. And so—at any rate in the world of imagination—children as well as women gradually became the objects of a new solicitude. We do not find in all literature prior to the Middle Ages quite that _pathetic_ sense of childhood which Chaucer has expressed so delicately in the story of Ugolino of Pisa in his _Monk’s Tale_: But litel out of Pize stant[34] a tour In whiche tour in prisoun put was he, And with hym been his litel children three, The eldest scarsly fyf yeer was of age. Allas, Fortune! it was greet crueltee Swiche briddes[35] for to put in swiche a cage! Quotations are scarcely needed to intimate how such colourless words as _little_—here sentimentally repeated—_children_, and even _cruelty_, had gradually been laden with fresh emotional significance by the Roman Church’s worship of the baby Jesus and its popular expression in carol and drama. We still have a few examples of these old Nativity Plays, from the individual scenes of which we take the word _pageant_, and about the same time that Chaucer wrote we know that the tailors of Coventry composed and sang the beautiful carol which begins: Lully, lullay, thou little tiny Child, By by lully, lullay. Herod the King In his raging Charged he hath this day His men of might In his own sight All young children to slay....