Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote?

And to think that my sophomore English teacher wasn’t kidding when she told me that memorizing the prologue to the Canterbury Tales would definitely come in handy in my later life!

Here it is, just as Mrs. Linzenmeier had me learn it:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye

(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages…