Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79. | | | | Windsor | | Chaucer and Windsor | | Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) |
| | | 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. | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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. | | | | |
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