A Student

A youth was there, of quiet ways,
A Student of old books and days,
To whom all tongues and lands were known,
And yet, a lover of his own;
With many a social virtue graced,
And yet a friend of solitude;
A man of such a genial mood
The heart of all things he embraced,
And yet of such fastidious taste,
He never found the best too good.
Books were his passion and delight,
And in his upper room at home
Stood many a rare and sumptuous tome,
In vellum bound, with gold bedight,
Great volumes garmented in white,
Recalling Florence, Pica, Rome.
He love the twilight that surrounds
the border-land of old romance;
Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance,
And banner waves, and trumpet sounds,
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,
And mighty warriors sweep along,
Magnified by the purple mist,
The dusk of centuries and of song.
The chronicles of Charlemagne,
Of Merlin and the Mort d"Arthure,
Mingled together in his brain
With tales of Lores and Blanchefleur,
Sir Ferumbras, Sir Eglamour
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain.

From "Tales of A Wayside Inn"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Good Man

A good man was there of religioun,
And was a poure persoun of a toun,
But riche he was of hooly thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That cristes gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parishenns  devoutly wolde he teche.
Benynge he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitee ful pacient,
And swich he was ypreved ofte sithes.

Geoffrey Chaucer,  The Canterbury Tales

A right spirit

"There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things. in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltations and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it is betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is its meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned: it takes its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life ... When I was weak Thou stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightest present me to the world of Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Let his be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.

James Naylor. A Collection of Sundry Books, Papers and Epistles. 1716.