The day is more, and longer every night
Than they were wont to be-for he thought so;
And that the sun did take his course not right,
By longer way than he was wont to go;
And said, I am in constant dread I trow,
That Phaeton his son is yet alive,

His too fond Father's car amiss to drive.

Upon the walls fast also would he walk,
To the end that he the Grecian host might see;
And ever thus he to himself would talk :—

Lo, yonder is mine own bright Lady free ;

Or yonder is it that the tents must be ;

And thence does come this air which is so sweet, That in my soul I feel the joy of it.

And certainly this wind, that more and more

By moments thus increaseth in my face,

Is of my Lady's sighs heavy and sore;

I

prove it thus; for in no other space Of all this town, save only in this place, Feel I a wind, that soundeth so like pain; It saith, Alas, why severed are we twain.

A weary while in pain he tosseth thus,

Till fully past and gone was the ninth night;
And even at his side stood Pandarus,

Who busily made use of all his might

To comfort him, and make his heart too light; Giving him always hope, that she the morrow Of the tenth day will come, and end his sorrow.

THE REVE'S TALE;

MODERNIZED

By R. H. HORNE.

NOTE.

It has been thought that an idea of the extraordinary versatility of Chaucer's genius could not be adequately conveyed unless one of his matter-of-fact comic tales were attempted. The Reve's has accordingly been selected, as presenting a graphic painting of characters,―equal to those contained in the "Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,"-displayed in action by means of a story which may be designated as a broad farce ending in a pantomime of absurd reality.

To those who are acquainted with the original, an apology may not be considered inadmissible for certain necessary variations and omissions.