Bodying the form and pressure of his age,
Tints gay as pure, and delicate as strong;
Still to the Tabard the blithe travellers throng,
Seen in his mind so vividly, that we
Know them more clearly than the men we see.

Fair France, bright Italy, those numbers train'd;
First in his pages Nature wedding Art
Of all our sons of song; yet he remain'd
True English of the English at his heart:--
He stood between two worlds, yet had no part
In that new order of the dawning day
Which swept the masque of chivalry away.

O Poet of romance and courtly glee
And downcast eager glance that shuns the sky,
Above, about, are signs thou canst not see,
Portents in heaven and earth!--And one goes by
With other than thy prosperous, laughing eye,
Framing the rough web of his rueful lays,
The sorrow and the sin--with bitter gaze

As down the Strand he stalks, a sable shade
Of death, while, jingling like the elfin train,
In silver samite knight and dame and maid
Ride to the tourney on the barrier'd plain;
And he must bow in humble mute disdain,
And that worst woe of baffled souls endure,
To see the evil that they may not cure.