Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Modern English Prose Translation (lines 1-18):

When April with its sweet showers

The drought of March has pierced to the root,

And bathed every vein in such liquid

By which virtue engendered is the flower,

When the West Wind with its sweet breath 5

Has inspired in every wood and heath

The tender shoots, and the young sun

Has in the sign of the Ram half its course run,

And little birds make melody,

That sleep al the night with open eye 10

(So nature urges them in their hearts),

Then long folk to go on pilgrimages,

And palmers to seek strange shores,

To distant shrines, known in sundry lands;

And specially from every shires end 15

Of England to Canterbury they go,

The holy blissful martyr to seek,

Who has helped them when they were sick.