“I came to the shore of a waterway:
Dear God, what brave embellishment!

Embellishing those waters deep,
Banks of pure beryl greet my gaze;
Sweetly the eddies swirl and sweep
With a rest and a rush in murmuring phrase;
Stones in the stream their colors steep,
Gleaming like glass where sunbeam strays,
As stars, while men of the marshlands sleep,
Flash in winter from frosty space;
For every one was a gem to praise,
A sapphire or emerald opulent,
That seemed to set the pool ablaze,
So brilliant their embellishment.’

—the medieval Pearl, translated from the Middle English by Marie Borroff, 1977.