Long Chaucer Poems

Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Medieval Poems



Deor's Lament (Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen...

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Rejection
a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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Sneaking into the museum to avoid the sudden rain
Raisin said, “I don’t want to get soaked right through again,
It was bad enough when that truck through that puddle dashed
And you and me - but mainly...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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Unquotable quotes: Poets, Poetasters and Platos – XXXVI

     For James McAuley – in remembrance of a memorable week in Cardiff 1965 

The greatest poet ever is NOT Homer, Lao Tse, Ovid,...

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My father died prematurely while away on 
a business trip from a rogue blood clot to the heart  
I never doubted he loved me, would have liked me, 
(not the same thing), adult to...

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Lament for the Makaris ("Lament for the Makers/Poets")
by William Dunbar [c. 1460-1530]
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
 
i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity ...
how the...

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Transl. of Eric Mottram’s A Faithful Private - 4 with a Clive Bush comment on Mottram's poetry 

Excerpt from an article, “From space to caves in the heart recreating the collective world in Eric Mottram’s...

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THREE ROCKS

Written for Competition :  A Magical Journey 
Sponsor : Constance La France

[ Prompt : I hold three magic rocks in my hand
   Rolling them over and over and over
  ...

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It was a grey day more or less on planet earth,
But earth’s robots hardly noticed at all
Robot logic so tuned into ones and zeros,
On and off, grey matter is of little interest
Day and night, sunrise...

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"Cantus Troili" from "Troilus and Criseyde"
by Petrarch
translation by Geoffrey Chaucer
modernization by Michael R. Burch

If there’s no love, O God, why then, so low?
And if love is, what thing, and which, is he?
If love is good,...

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Three Roundels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my...

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These are modern English translations of poems written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer. 

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

When April with her sweet showers
has pierced the drought of March...

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These are modern English translations of love poems by Geoffrey Chaucer. These are poems of love, longing, passion and desire.

To Rosemounde: A Ballade
by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

Madame, you’re a shrine to loveliness
And as...

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Not that I pity myself
While holding a gun on my temple with this gentle discipline,
My identity is clear but my behaviour is doubtful
To the extent of brutish masculinity – defined as stubbornness.
Oh Majesty! of all...

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Dearest Poets of All Ages,
Welcome to the unique magic of poetry!
I may disqualify myself by saying I don't like using the term modern as it usually implies that we are smarter, more advanced, better than...

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If two heads are better than one
How much better is three.
For the time has come 
When Translators cannot agree.

Nigel wrote the words in Latin script
And much time has passed 
With many Learned Ones pen’s dipt
In...

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The Bucket List

Imagine if you will, a scene unlike any other,
Sipping Espresso daybreak, foothills of snow that smother.
Pavement Café in Zermatt, first patron of the morn’
Eyes glazed in wonder, the magnificence of Matterhorn.

Imagine if you...

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Escape
rondel/roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question...

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Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds...

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Written: January 26, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Sara Jama
Quote by Geoffrey Chaucer "Time and tide wait for no man,"
               ...

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