Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint,
And as a leon he his loking caste.
Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.
His berd was wel begonnen for to spring;
His vois was as a trompe thondering.
Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene
A gerlond freshe and lusty for to sene.
Upon his hond he bare for his deduit
An egle tame, as any lily whit.--
About this king ther ran on every part
Ful many a tame leon and leopart."

What a deal of terrible beauty there is contained in this
description! The imagination of a poet brings such objects before us, as
when we look at wild beasts in a menagerie; their claws are pared, their
eyes glitter like harmless lightning; but we gaze at them with a
pleasing awe, clothed in beauty, formidable in the sense of abstract
power.

Chaucer's descriptions of natural scenery possess the same sort of
characteristic excellence, or what might be termed _gusto_. They have a
local truth and freshness, which gives the very feeling of the air, the
coolness or moisture of the ground. Inanimate objects are thus made to
have a fellow-feeling in the interest of the story; and render back the
sentiment of the speaker's mind. One of the finest parts of Chaucer is
of this mixed kind. It is the beginning of the Flower and the Leaf,
where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrowded in her
bower, and listening, in the morning of the year, to the singing of the
nightingale; while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out
afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of