212 On the Campus 



Full busily heark'ned with heart and ear, 

 If I her voice perceive could anywhere." 



The Flower and Leaf 



Here you will note we have a formal description of the 

 oak forest effected by enumerating particulars. You 

 go out to see the forest and you see it, the spaces between 

 the trees and all. 



Take another bit of Chaucer by way of contrast : this, 

 as discussion of a flower, is from the Prologue to the 

 Legend of Good Women: 



"When comen is the May, 

 Then in my bed there daweth me no day 

 That I n'am up and walking in the mead, 

 To see this flower against the sunne spread, 

 When it upriseth early in the morrow; 

 That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow; 

 So glad am I, when that I have presence 

 Of it, to doen it all reverence, 

 As she that is of all flow'rs the flow'r." 



"And down on knees anon right I me set, 

 And as I could this pleasant flower I grette, 

 Kneeling always till it unclosed was 

 Upon the small and soft and swete gras. ' ' 



This is surely a bit of pleasant affectation, not unlike 

 the raptures of the Chicago lady who on the Alps wor- 

 ships the edelweiss, the form and real meaning of the 

 flower alike to her unknown. 



It is needless to say, Shakespeare never does anything 

 like this. You are carried naturally forward on the 

 tide of his story and see the flowers as you pass by. 

 They are about us all the time, and his dramatis persona 

 may pick them, use them as they will. He never thinks 





