“Hedgerows on lands, and rivers through lairs;
Their currents gleamed like fine gold filament.
I strolled to a stream displaying its wares;
Lord, dear was its adornment.

The adornments dear in depths that glow
Revealed fair banks of beryl bright.
Swirling freely, the stream did flow,
Whispering en route, whirling aright.
Biding at bottom, stones bestow
Glistening beams, void of blight,
Like stars which woodsmen sleep below,
Streaming in sky on winter’s night;
For each jewel joined under floods in flight
Was emerald, sapphire, or pearl affluent,
Lending that brook its luminous light,
So dear was its adornment.”

—Pearl, a 14th-century medieval poem, author unknown; translated from the Middle English by William Vantuono, 1995.