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NOTHING is better I well think	A
Than love the hidden well water	B
Is not so delicate to drink	A
This was well seen of me and her	B
	-
I served her in a royal house	C
I served her wine and curious meat	D
For will to kiss between her brows	E
I had no heart to sleep or eat	D
	-
Mere scorn God knows she had of me	F
A poor scribe nowise great or fair	G
Who plucked his clerk s hood back to see	F
Her curled up lips and amorous hair	G
	-
I vex my head with thinking this	H
Yea though God always hated me	F
And hates me now that I can kiss	H
Her eyes plait up her hair to see	F
	-
How she then wore it on the brows	E
Yet am I glad to have her dead	I
Here in this wretched wattled house	C
Where I can kiss her eyes and head	I
	-
Nothing is better I well know	J
Than love no amber in cold sea	F
Or gathered berries under snow	J
That is well seen of her and me	F
	-
Three thoughts I make my pleasure of	K
First I take heart and think of this	H
That knight s gold hair she chose to love	K
His mouth she had such will to kiss	H
	-
Then I remember that sundawn	J
I brought him by a privy way	L
Out at her lattice and thereon	J
What gracious words she found to say	L
	-
Cold rushes for such little feet	D
Both feet could lie into my hand	M
A marvel was it of my sweet	D
Her upright body could so stand	M
	-
Sweet friend God give you thank and grace	N
Now am I clean and whole of shame	O
Nor shall men burn me in the face	N
For my sweet fault that scandals them	P
	-
I tell you over word by word	Q
She sitting edgewise on her bed	I
Holding her feet said thus The third	Q
A sweeter thing than these I said	I
	-
God that makes time and ruins it	R
And alters not abiding God	S
Changed with disease her body sweet	D
The body of love wherein she abode	T
	-
Love is more sweet and comelier	G
Than a dove s throat strained out to sing	U
All they spat out and cursed at her	G
And cast her forth for a base thing	U
	-
They cursed her seeing how God had wrought	V
This curse to plague her a curse of his	W
Fools were they surely seeing not	X
How sweeter than all sweet she is	W
	-
He that had held her by the hair	G
With kissing lips blinding her eyes	Y
Felt her bright bosom strained and bare	G
Sigh under him with short mad cries	Y
	-
Out of her throat and sobbing mouth	Z
And body broken up with love	K
With sweet hot tears his lips were loth	A2
Her own should taste the savour of	K
	-
Yea he inside whose grasp all night	B2
Her fervent body leapt or lay	L
Stained with sharp kisses red and white	B2
Found her a plague to spurn away	L
	-
I hid her in this wattled house	C
I served her water and poor bread	I
For joy to kiss between her brows	E
Time upon time I was nigh dead	I
	-
Bread failed we got but well water	G
And gathered grass with dropping seed	C2
I had such joy of kissing her	G
I had small care to sleep or feed	C2
	-
Sometimes when service made me glad	D2
The sharp tears leapt between my lids	E2
Falling on her such joy I had	D2
To do the service God forbids	E2
	-
I pray you let me be at peace	F2
Get hence make room for me to die	G2
She said that her poor lip would cease	F2
Put up to mine and turn to cry	G2
	-
I said Bethink yourself how love	K
Fared in us twain what either did	H2
Shall I unclothe my soul thereof	K
That I should do this God forbid	H2
	-
Yea though God hateth us he know	J
That hardly in a little thing	U
Love faileth of the work it does	I2
Till it grow ripe for gathering	U
	-
Six months and now my sweet is dead	I
A trouble takes me I know not	X
If all were done well all well said	I
No word or tender deed forgot	X
	-
Too sweet for the least part in her	G
To have shed life out by fragments yet	J2
Could the close mouth catch breath and stir	G
I might see something I forget	J2
	-
Six months and I still sit and hold	K2
In two cold palms her two cold feet	D
Her hair half grey half ruined gold	K2
Thrills me and burns me in kissing it	R
	-
Love bites and stings me through to see	F
Her keen face made of sunken bones	L2
Her worn off eyelids madden me	F
That were shot through with purple once	M2
	-
She said Be good with me I grow	J
So tired for shame s sake I shall die	G2
If you say nothing even so	J
And she is dead now and shame put by	G2
	-
Yea and the scorn she had of me	F
In the old time doubtless vexed her then	J
I never should have kissed her See	F
What fools God s anger makes of men	J
	-
She might have loved me a little too	N2
Had I been humbler for her sake	O2
But that new shame could make love new	N2
She saw not yet her shame did make	O2
	-
I took too much upon my love	K
Having for such mean service done	J
Her beauty and all the ways thereof	K
Her face and all the sweet thereon	J
	-
Yea all this while I tended her	G
I know the old love held fast his part	P2
I know the old scorn waxed heavier	G
Mixed with sad wonder in her heart	P2
	-
It may be all my love went wrong	Q2
A scribe s work writ awry and blurred	Q
Scrawled after the blind evensong	Q2
Spoilt music with no perfect word	Q
	-
But surely I would fain have done	J
All things the best I could Perchance	R2
Because I failed came short of one	J
She kept at heart that other man s	S2
	-
I am grown blind with all these things	T2
It may be now she hath in sight	B2
Some better knowledge still there clings	T2
The old question Will not God do right	B2

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Leper Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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