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