_Dec. 30. Thursday._ I admire Chaucer for a sturdy English wit. The easy height he speaks from in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is as good as anything in it,—as if he were indeed better than any of the company there assembled.[314] The poet does not have to go out of himself and cease to tattle of his domestic affairs, to win our confidence, but is so broad that we see no limits to his sympathy. Great delicacy and gentleness of character is constantly displayed in Chaucer's verse. The simplest and humblest words come readily to his lips. The natural innocence of the man appears in the simple and pure spirit in which "The Prioresses Tale" is conceived, in which the child sings _O alma redemptoris mater_, and in the account of the departure of Custance with her child upon the sea, in "The Man of Lawes Tale."[315] The whole story of Chanticleer and Dame Partlet in "The Nonnes Preestes Tale" is genuine humanity. I know nothing better in its kind. The poets seem to be only more frank and plain-spoken than other men. Their verse is but confessions. They always confide in the reader, and speak privily with him, keeping nothing back.[316] I know of no safe rule by which to judge of the purity of a former age but that I see that the impure of the present age are not apt to rise to noble sentiments when they speak or write, and suspect, therefore, that there may be more truth than is allowed in the apology that such was the manner of the age.[317] Within the circuit of this plodding life, There are moments of an azure hue And as unspotted fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some south woodside; which make untrue The best philosophy which has so poor an aim But to console man for his grievance here. I have remembered when the winter came, High in my chamber in the frosty nights, How in the summer past some Unrecorded beam slanted across Some upland pasture where the Johnswort grew, Or heard, amidst the verdure of my mind, the bee's long-smothered hum, So by the cheap economy of God made rich to go upon my wintry work again. In the still, cheerful cold of winter nights, When, in the cold light of the moon, On every twig and rail and jutting spout The icy spears are doubling their length Against the glancing arrows of the sun, And the shrunk wheels creak along the way, Some summer accident long past Of lakelet gleaming in the July beams, Or hum of bee under the blue flag, Loitering in the meads, or busy rill which now stands dumb and still, its own memorial, purling at its play along the slopes, and through the meadows next, till that its sound was quenched in the staid current of its parent stream.