The Franklin's Tale
Folio 155v
5 of 24 folios
xxxx xreendes sawe / hir sorwe gan to slake
xxd preyde hir on knees / for goddes sake
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To come / and romen hire in compaignye
Awey to dryue / hir derke fantasye
And finally / she graunted that requeste
For wel she saw / þt it was for the beste
¶ Now stood hir Castel / faste by the See
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And often / with hir freendes walketh she
Hir to disporte / vp on the bank anheigh
Wher as she / many a Shipe and Barge seigh
Seillynge hir cours / wher as hem liste go
But thanne was that a parcel of hir wo
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For of hir self ful ofte allas seith she
Is ther no shipe / of so manye as I se
Wol bryngen hom my lord / thanne were myn herte
Al warisshed / of hise bittre peynes smerte
¶ Another tyme / there wolde she sitte and thynke
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And caste hir eyen / downward fro the Brynke
But whan she seigh / the grisly Rokkes blake
For verray fere / so wolde hir herte quake
That on hir feet she myghte hir noght sustene
Thanne wolde she / sitte adoun vp on the grene
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And pitously / in to the See biholde
And seyn right thus / with sorweful sikes colde
¶ Eterne god / that thurgh thy purueiance
Ledest the world / by certeyn gouernance
In ydel as men seyn / ye no thyng make
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But lord / thise grisly / feendly Rokkes blake
That semen rather / a foul confusioū
Of werk / than any fair creacioū
Of swich a parfit wys god and a stable
Why han ye wroght this werk vnresonable
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For by this werk Soutħ / Nortħ / ne West ne Est
Ther nys yfostred / man / ne bryd / ne beest
It doth no good to my wit but anoyeth
Se ye nat lord / how mankynde it destroyeth
An hundred thousand bodies / of mankynde
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Han Rokkes slayn / al be they nat in mynde
Which mankynde / is so fair part of thy werk
That thow it madest lyk to thyn owen merk