Pain thee not each crooked to redress
In trust of her (Fortune) that turneth as a ball.
Greate rest stands in little business.
Beware also to spurn against a nail.
Strive not as doth a pitcher with a wall.
Deeme thyself that deemest others' deed;
And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.

That thee is sent receive in buxomness;
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall.
Here is no home, here is but wilderness.
Forth, pilgram! forth, beast, out of thy stall!
Look up on high, and thank God of all.
Waive thy lust, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And truth shall thee deliver, it is no dread.

Misfortunes, it is said, never come alone; and whatever view may be taken
as to the nature of the relations between Chaucer and his wife, her death
cannot have left him untouched. From the absence of any record as to the
payment of her pension after June, 1387, this event is presumed to have
taken place in the latter half of that year. More than this cannot safely
be conjectured; but it remains POSSIBLE that the "Legend of Good Women"
and its "Prologue" formed a peace-offering to one whom Chaucer may have
loved again after he had lost her, though without thinking of her as of
his "late departed saint." Philippa Chaucer had left behind her a son of
the name of Lewis; and it is pleasing to find the widower in the year 1391
(the year in which he lost his Clerkship of the Works) attending to the
boy's education, and supplying him with the intellectual "bread and milk"
suitable for his tender age in the shape of a popular treatise on a