"In 'The Cuckoo and Nightingale', a poem of the third of May--a date corresponding to the mid-May, the very heart of May according to our modern reckoning--the poet after a wakeful night rises, and goes forth at dawn, and comes to a 'laund' or plain 'of white and green.' 'So feire oon had I nevere in bene, The grounde was grene, y poudred with daysé, The floures and the gras ilike al hie, Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene.' Nothing seen but the short green grass and the white daisies,--grass and daisies being of equal height. Unfortunately in Tyrwhitt's text the description is nonsensical, 'The flowres and the greves like hie.' The daisy flowers are as high as the _groves_! Wordsworth retained the groves, but refused to make daisies of equal height with them. 'Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover, All green and white; and nothing else was seen.'" (Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society'. No. III.)--Ed.] [Footnote D: "In Chaucer's poem, after 'the cuckoo, bird unholy,' has said his evil say, the Nightingale breaks forth 'so lustily,' 'That with her clere voys she made rynge Thro out alle the grene wode wide,' Wordsworth has taken a poet's licence with these lines: 'I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing, That her clear voice made 'a loud rioting', Echoing through all the green wood wide.' This 'loud rioting' is Wordsworth's, not Chaucer's; and it belongs, as it were, to that other passage of his: 'O Nightingale, thou surely art A creature of a fiery heart, These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce! Thou sing'st as if the God of wine Had helped thee to a Valentine.'" (Professor Dowden, in the 'Transactions of the Wordsworth Society', No. III.)--Ed.] [Footnote E: From a manuscript in the Bodleian, as are also stanzas 44 and 45--W. W. (1841), which are necessary to complete the sense--W. W. (added in 1842).] * * * * * TROILUS AND CRESIDA Translated 1801.--Published 1841 [A] Next morning Troilus began to clear His eyes from sleep, at the first break of day, And unto Pandarus, his own Brother dear, For love of God, full piteously did say, We must the Palace see of Cresida; 5 For since we yet may have no other feast, Let us behold her Palace at the least! And therewithal to cover his intent A cause he found into the Town to go, [B] And they right forth to Cresid's Palace went; 10 But, Lord, this simple Troilus was woe, Him thought his sorrowful heart would break [1] in two; For when he saw her doors fast bolted all, Well nigh for sorrow down he 'gan to fall.