Thomas Campbell

Chaucer and Windsor

LONG shalt thou flourish, Windsor! bodying forth
Chivalric times, and long shall live around
Thy Castle the old oaks of British birth,
Whose gnarléd roots, tenacious and profound,
As with a lion’s talons grasp the ground.
But should thy towers in ived ruin rot,
There ’s one, thine inmate once, whose strain renowned
Would interdict thy name to be forgot;
For Chaucer loved thy bowers and trode this very spot.
Chaucer! our Helicon’s first fountain-stream,
Our morning star of song,—that led the way
To welcome the long-after coming beam
Of Spenser’s light and Shakespeare’s perfect day
Old England’s fathers live in Chaucer’s lay,
As if they ne’er had died. He grouped and drew
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay,
That still they live and breathe in Fancy’s view,
Fresh beings fraught with truth’s imperishable hue.