Chaucer's Love of Nature 
And in myn herte have hem in reverence 
So hertely, that there is game noon, 
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, 
But hit be other upon the haly-day, 
Or elles in the Ioly tyme of May 
Whan that I here the smale foules singe 
And that the floures gynne for to springe— 
Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun ! 1 
In his vivid descriptions of scenes in spring 
and summer, the carols of the birds are 
always a prominent feature. Thus, at the 
very beginning of his Canterbury Tales, the 
mere thought of April, with its sweet 
showers and tender leafage “in every holt 
and heath,” recalls to him how the 
Smale foules maken melodye 
That slepen al the night with open yé.2 
His poem on The Parlement of Foules 
represents the various birds of the air 
1 Legende of Goode Women, Prologue, 30. 
Again he declares : 
As for myn entent 
The birdes song was more convient 
And more pleasaunt to me by many fold 
Than mete or drink or any other thing. 
Flower and Leaf, 118. 
2 Prologue, 9. 
