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A memorial of the parish and family of Hanmer

in Flintshire out of the thirteenth into the nineteenth century: By John Lord Hanmer
Hanmer, John Hanmer (1809-1881)
 
[epigraph]

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SONNETS AND EPIGRAMS.
 
AULETES: AN EPITAPH.
 
CHAUCER.
 
TO A FRIEND.
 
THE CRUCIFIX.
 
ON AN INSCRIBED MONUMENT CONSISTING OF THE FIGURES OF HOPE AND CONTEMPLATION.

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224

CHAUCER.

When I remember how nor separate chance,
Nor restless traffic peopling many a shore,
Nor old tradition with innumerous lore,
But poets wrought our best inheritance;
Sweet words and noble; in their gai science
That England heard, and then for evermore
Loved as her own, and did with deeds adore;
I bless thee with a kindred heart, Provence:
232

For to thy tales, like waves that come and go,
Sat Chaucer listening with exulting ear;
And casting his own phrase in giant mould:
That still had charms for sorrow's gentlest tear,
Telling the story of Griselda's woe,
“Under the roots of Vesulus the cold.”
 

Vesulus is Monte Viso; Virgil calls it pinifer—

“Canum morsu de montibus altis
Actus aper multos Vesulus quem pinifer annos
Defendit.”
En. x. 707.

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