These lines give us a sure key to the main motive of the story which was to follow. With some others in the same style, they are quoted by the poet as composing a gloss written in minute script on the margin of a wonderful illuminated book over which the damsel is found poring and which is to have some mysterious influence on her destiny. More noticeable and interesting than their somewhat random Rowleyism is the way in which some of the descriptive lines in the body of the poem anticipate the very cadences of Chaucer's great latter-day disciple, William Morris. The first eight or ten lines of the following might have come straight from _The Man born to be King_ or _The Land East of the Sun_, and provide, as it were, in the history of our poetry a direct stepping-stone between Chaucer and Morris:-- The city streets were clean and fair From wholesome drench of April rains; And, on the western window panes, The chilly sunset faintly told Of unmatur'd green vallies cold, Of the green thorny bloomless hedge, Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge, Of primroses by shelter'd rills, And daisies on the aguish hills. Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell: The silent streets were crowded well With staid and pious companies, Warm from their fire-side orat'ries; And moving, with demurest air, To even-song, and vesper prayer. Each arched porch, and entry low, Was fill'd with patient folk and slow, With whispers hush, and shuffling feet, While play'd the organ loud and sweet.