Reading Middle English is like not quite understanding a foreign language. Yet something comprehensible trickles through, even when I don't know exactly what the words mean. And saying it aloud feels like singing with a mouthful of pebbles. Which, as a sensation, is more delightful than you might think.

from Ubi Sunt Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt? [translated by the first line, if that's any help]

Anonymous (c. 1275)

Where beth they beforen us weren,

houndes ladden and havekes beren,

and hadden field and wode?

The riche levedies in their bower,

that werenden gold in their tressour,

with their brighte rode?

Eten and drunken and maden them glad;

their life was all with gamen i-lad;

men keneleden them beforen;

they bearen them well swithe high.

And in the twinkling of an eye

their soules weren forloren.

Where is that laughing and that song,

that trailing and that proude yong,

those havekes and those houndes?

All that joy is went away,

that weal is comen to weylaway,

to manye harde stoundes.