Chaucer by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Chaucer is pictured as an old man listening to a lark and writing in a park lodge whose walls bear hunting scenes. Reading his poetry, the speaker hears birds and senses the scents of ploughed fields and flowering meadows.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Literary Tribute · 166 words
First lines
An old man in a lodge within a park; / The chamber walls depicted all around / With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound. / And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, / Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark / Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; / He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, / Then writeth in a book like any clerk. / He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote / The Canterbury Tales, and his old age / Made beautiful with song; and as I read / I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note / Of lark and linnet, and from every page / Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from a portrait of the poet listening and writing to the speaker's experience of reading him.
- Literary Tribute — The speaker portrays Chaucer at work and describes the birdsong and rural scents his pages bring to mind.
Tags
sonnet · literary tribute · birdsong · reading · rural imagery
What this Textopian page supports
Chaucer is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Literary Tribute
- Length: 166 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Chaucer by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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