'When the nightingale singës the woods waxen green,
Leaf, grass, and blossom springs in Avril I ween,
And love is to my heart gone, with one spear so keen,
Night and day my blood it drinks, my heart doth me teen.'
About a hundred years after Layamon (in 1280) appeared a poet not
dissimilar to him, named Robert of Gloucester. His surname is unknown, and
so are the particulars of his history. We know only that he was a monk of
Gloucester Abbey, that he lived in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I.,
and that he translated the Legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and continued
the History of England down to the time of Edward I. This work is wonder-
fully minute, and, generally speaking, accurate in its topography as well
as narrative, and was of service to Selden when he wrote his Notes to
Drayton's 'Polyolbion.' It is more valuable in this respect than as a
piece of imagination.
He narrates the grandest events--such as the first crusaders bursting
into Asia, with a sword of fire hung in the firmament before them, and
beckoning them on their way--as coolly as he might the emigration of a
colony of ants. Yet, although there is little animation or poetry in his
general manner, he usually succeeds in riveting the reader's attention;
and the speeches he puts into the mouths of his heroes glow with at
least rhetorical fire. And as a critic truly remarks--'Injustice to the
ancient versifier, we should remember that he had still only a rude
language to employ, the speech of boors and burghers, which, though it
might possess a few songs and satires, could afford him no models of
heroic narration. In such an age the first occupant passes uninspired
over subjects which might kindle the highest enthusiasm in the poet of
a riper period, as the savage treads unconsciously in his deserts over
mines of incalculable value, without sagacity to discover or inplements
to explore them.' We give the following extracts from Robert of
Gloucester's poem:--