The Spring Pilgrimage

The Spring Pilgrimage
From Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Canterbury Tales"

In spring-time, pilgrims flock to Canterbury to visit the Shrine of Thomas A Becket


When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such liquor
Of which virtue engendered is the flower;
When Zephyrus also with his sweet breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tender crops, and the young sun
Hath in the Ram his half-course run,
And small fowls make sweet melody,
That sleep all the night with open eyes
So nature stirs them in their corages;
Then people long to go on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seek out foreign strands,
And far-off shrines, well-known in various lands;
And specially, from every shire's end
Of England, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful martyr for to seek,
Who them has helped at times when they were sick.