A lover’s song, called Alysoun, is one of the best of these lyrics:—­

  “Bytuene Mershe ant[3] Averil[4]
    When spray biginneth to spring,
  The lutel[5] foul hath hire wyl
    On hyre lud[6] to synge.”

A famous spring lyric beginning:—­

  “Lenten[7] ys come with love to toune,[8]
    With blosmen ant with briddes[9] roune."[10]

is a symphony of daisies, roses, “lovesome lilies,” thrushes, and “notes suete of nyhtegales.”

The refrain of one love song is invigorating with the breath of the northern wind:—­

  “Blou, northerne wynd! 
  Send thou me my suetyng! 
  Blou norterne wynd! blou, blou, blou!”

The Cuckoo Song, which is perhaps older than any of these, is the best known of all the early lyrics:—­

  “Sumer is i-cumen in
  Lhude sing cuccu
  Groweth sed and bloweth med
  And springeth the wde nu. 
  Sing cuccu, cuccu.”

  Summer is a-coming in,
  Loud sing cuckoo,
  Groweth seed and bloometh mead,
  And springeth the wood now. 
  Sing cuckoo, cuckoo.

A more somber note is heard in the religious lyrics:—­

     “Wynter wakeneth al my care,
        Nou this leves waxeth bare;
      Ofte I sike[11] ant mourne sare[12]
    When hit cometh in my thoht
  Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht.”

We do not know the names of any of these singers, but they were worthy forerunners of the later lyrists of love and nature.

Robert Manning of Brunne.—­We have now come to fourteenth-century literature, which begins to wear a more modern aspect.  Robert Manning, generally known as Robert of Brunne, because he was born at Brunne, now called Bourn, in Lincolnshire, adapted from a Norman-French original a work entitled Handlyng Synne (Manual of Sins).  This book, written in the Midland dialect in 1303, discourses of the Seven Deadly Sins and the best ways of living a godly life.

A careful inspection of the following selection from the Handlyng Synne will show that, aside from the spelling, the English is essentially modern.  Most persons will be able to understand all but a few words.  He was the first prominent English writer to use the modern order of words.  The end rime is also modern.  A beggar, seeing a beast laden with bread at the house of a rich man, asks for food.  The poem says of the rich man:—­

  “He stouped down to seke a stone,
  But, as hap was, than fonde he none. 
  For the stone he toke a lofe,
  And at the pore man hyt drofe. 
  The pore man hente hyt up belyue,
  And was thereof ful ferly blythe,
  To hys felaws fast he ran
  With the lofe, thys pore man.”

  He stooped down to seek a stone,
  But, as chance was, then found he none. 
  For the stone he took a loaf,
  And at the poor man it drove. 
  The poor man caught it up quickly,
  And was thereof full strangely glad,
  To his fellows fast he ran
  With the loaf this poor man.