“When April comes and with its showers sweet

Has, to the root, pierced March’s drought complete,

And then bathed every vein in such elixir

That, by its strength, engendered is the flower;

. . .

Then folks, too, long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers hope to seek there, on strange strands,

Those far-off shrines well known in many lands.”

—from “The General Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer