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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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, I might see something I forget.