SUMMER HEAT 171 



own experiences in the past, and of the state of things 

 in old times. For our little ones, even in this altered 

 age in which we have made our own conditions, in 

 their quick and keen response to nature's influences, 

 perpetually recall our own past to us, and that of the 

 race. The sight of their faces lit with the strong 

 sunlight from above and the summer bliss from with- 

 in, brought back the vision of old Piers Plowman, ill- 

 fed and gaunt and ragged, following his plough on a 

 winters day — the picture which has often made me 

 shiver with the sensation of remembered cold. Lines 

 that had printed themselves indelibly on my memory, 

 so keenly did I feel when I read them, now seemed 

 all at once to have a new and deeper significance. 

 " There the poor dare plead," the old poet says ; and 

 by " there " he means after life and its miseries, at the 

 Juds^ment-seat : — 



There the poor dare plead, 



And prove by pure reson 



To have allowance of his lord, 



By the lawe he it claimeth ; 



Joye that never joye hadde 



Of rightful jugge he asketh, 



And seth, Lo, briddes and beasts, 



That no blisse ne knoweth, 



And wilde worines in wodes, 



Through winter thou them grievest 



And maketh them well nigh meke 



And mild for defaute ; 



And after thou sendeth them somer. 



That is their sovereign joye 



And blisse to all that ben 



Both wilde and tame. 



