no THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



lust present was all his thought." And the gaiety is no 

 less in the sorrowful passages than in the joyful; when, for 

 example, he compares the subjection of the fierce, proud 

 Troilus to love, with the whipping of a spirited horse; 

 when he uses the apparent commonplace about age creep- 

 ing in "always as still as stone " upon fresh youth; when 

 he exclaims to the false Jason — 



Have at thee, Jason ! now thy home is blowe ; 

 or cries at the fate of Ugolino's children — 



Alias, Fortune ! it was greet crueltee 

 Swiche briddes for to putte in swich a cage ! 



Even in Griselda's piteous cry — 



O tendre, O deere, O yonge children myne, 



there is an intimation that in those words her sorrow is 

 being spent and that, though it will be renewed, it will be 

 broken up by joyfulness many times before her death. 

 For, as Chaucer's laughter is assuredly never completed 

 by a sigh, so there is something hearty in his tears that 

 hints of laughter before and after. His was a sharp 

 surprising sorrow that came when he was forced to see 

 the suffering of lovely humanity. He is all gaiety; but it 

 has two moods. Sorrow never changes him more than 

 shadow changes a merry brook. In both moods he seems 

 to speak of a day when men had not only not so far 

 outstripped the lark and nightingale as we have done, 

 but had moments when their joy was equal to the lark's 

 above the grey dew of May dawns. And thus, if we only 

 had to thank Chaucer for the gaiety which is left behind 

 in his poems, as the straw of a long-past harvest clings 

 to the thorns of a narrow lane, we could never be 

 thankful enough. 



