When the sweet showers of April have pierced to the root the dryness of March, and bathed every vein in moisture whose quickening brings forth the flowers; when Zephyr also with his sweet breath has quickened the tender new shoots in holt and moor, and the young sun has run his half-course in the Ram, and little birds make melody and sleep all night with eyes open, so nature pricks them in their hearts: then folk long to go on pilgrimage to renowned shrines in sundry distant lands, and palmers to seek strange shores.