SOURCE: A preface to Early English Alliterative Poems. Oxford University Press, 1965, pp. ix-xx.

In the following excerpt, Morris considers Pearl to be a valuable resource for understanding early English and the art and tradition of the poet.

[In "The Pearl"], the author evidently gives expression to his own sorrow for the loss of his infant child, a girl of two years old, whom he describes as a

Perle pleasaunte to prynces paye
 Pearl pleasant to princes' pleasure,
 To clanly clos in golde so clere
 Most neatly set in gold so clear.

Of her death he says:

Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere
 Alas! I lost her in an arbour,
 ÞurƷ gresse to grounde hit fro me yot
 Through grass to ground it from me got.—
 (p-1.)

The writer then represents himself as visiting his child's grave (or arbour) in the "high season of August," and giving way...