An entry for the Lancaster Winter Festival poetry competition, in Renaissance Kingdoms. I looked up what writing was really like around 1456, and used that as a basis for my own.
When that December with his cold so sore November's fogs hath frozen to the core And bathed every vein in such licour Of which virtue engendered is the flower When Boreus with his icy breath Inspired hath in every holt and heath The bare branches; and the old sun From the Archer to the Goat hath run And smalle beasts make nut trees bare That sleepen all the winter in their lair Like drowsy bears in their caverns Then longe folke to go to taverns And drinkers for to seek strange brands To try their luck in sundry lands And specially, from every shires' end Of Engleand, to Lancaster they wend The corn, and bread and meat for to seek That them hath holpen, when that they were weak. |
and here's the original for comparison, from the Gutenberg Project WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*, *sweet |