280 CHAUCER. 



scribes, his epithets imply always an impression on the 

 moral sense (so to speak) of the person who hears or sees. 

 The sun "flatters the mountain-tops with sovereign eye " ; 

 the bending " weeds lacquey the dull stream " ; the 

 shadow of the falcon " couch eth the fowl below " ; the 

 smoke is " helpless " ; when Tarquin enters the chamber 

 of Lucrece " the threshold grates the door to have him 

 heard." His outward sense is merely a window through 

 which the metaphysical eye looks forth, and his mind 

 passes over at once from the simple sensation to the 

 complex meaning of it, — feels with the object instead of 

 merely feeling it. His imagination is forever drama- 

 tizing. Chaucer gives only the direct impression made 

 on the eye or ear. He was the first great poet who 

 really loved outward nature as the source of conscious 

 pleasurable emotion. The Troubadour hailed the return 

 of spring ; but with him it was a piece of empty ritual- 

 ism. Chaucer took a true delight in the new green of 

 the leaves and the return of singing birds, — a delight 

 as simple as that of Robin Hood : — 



*' In summer when the shaws be sheen, 

 And leaves be large and long, 

 It is full merry in fair forest 

 To hear the small birds' song." 



He has never so much as heard of the " burthen and the 

 mystery of all this unintelligible world." His flowers 

 and trees and birds have never bothered themselves 

 with Spinoza. He himself sings more like a bird than 

 any other poet, because it never occurred to him, as to 

 Goethe, that he ought to do so. He pours himself out 

 in sincere joy and thankfulness. When we compare Spen- 

 ser's imitations of him with the original passages, we feel 

 that the delight of the later poet was more in the ex- 

 pression than in the thing itself. Nature with him is only 

 good to be transfigured by art. We walk among Chau- 



