Thy place we know not nor degree,
The stock that bore thee, school that bred;
Yet shall thy fame be sung and said.
Poet of wonder, pain, and peace,
Hold high thy nameless, laurelled head
Where Dante dwells with Beatrice.





PREFACE

Among the treasures of the British Museum is a manuscript which
contains four anonymous poems, apparently of common authorship: "The
Pearl," "Cleanness," "Patience," "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight."
From the language of the writer, it seems clear that he was a native
of some Northwestern district of England, and that he lived in the
second half of the Fourteenth Century. He is quite unknown, save as
his work reveals him, a man of aristocratic breeding, of religious and
secular education, of a deeply emotional and spiritual nature, gifted
with imagination and perception of beauty. He shows a liking for
technique that leads him to adopt elaborate devices of rhyme, while
retaining the alliteration characteristic of Northern Middle English
verse. He wrote as was the fashion of his time, allegory, homily,
lament, chivalric romance, but the distinction of his poetry is that
of a finely accentuated individuality.

The poems called "Cleanness" and "Patience," retell incidents of
biblical history for a definitely didactic purpose, but even these are