Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/13

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TO THE MEMORY OF
PROFESSOR FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

How fain we conjure back his smile! How fain
As, bow’d with musings long on elvish lore,
He clutched his satchel at the class-room door
And shot the quick “Good-morning, gentlemen,”
From under the bronze curls, and entered. Then
For us that hour of quaint illusion wore
Such spell as when, beside the Breton shore,
The wizard clerk astounded Dorigen.
For we beheld the nine and twenty ride
Through those dim aisles their deathless pilgrimage,
Lady and monk and rascal laugh and chide,
Living and loving on the enchanted page,
Whilst, half apart, there murmured side by side
The master-poet and the scholar-mage.

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