my favorite poem

this poem was written sometime in the 1800’s, by a bit of a controversial writer named Algernon Charles Swinburne. form written records, and his writing style, he was very enthralled by the 16-17th century, using a lot of middle/old english terms (privy, hateth, thee, stuff like that). his works are simply exquisite, and beautifully written. i own a copy of a collections of his poems as well as a playwright/drama titled Poems and Ballads. a great portion of his writing is 

i’ve had this one poem linked on my page for quite some time now, but i’d like to shine some light onto it.

the title is The Leper, and it’s about this maddened clerk, who served a beautiful princess/lady who had fallen ill with leprosy. her family cast her from their home, and her lovers refused to take her in, leaving her to die. until our clerk guy comes around. he takes the woman, named Yolande, into his sad hut/cabin, where he cares for her, bathes her, feeds her, dresses and undresses her, even going as far to love and kiss her, even though she’s suffering from such a terrible disease and he’s exposing himself to it. eventually, Yolande dies, but the clerk is still caring for her, for 6 months going through the very rituals he did when she was still alive. eventually, he dies of the same fate as his lover did. 

(annoying rant)

it spares most of the gruesome details of Yolande’s death, but there’s this one line i’ve got a note on.

(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).

this line represents the moment in which her body barely starts decomposing. a cold rushing over her, and her body going though one of the very first stages of decomp: Rigor Mortis. Rigor Mortis is occurs in the first couple of hours onset of death, where the muscles stiffen up, and the body is forced into, usually an upright position (not like bent, or standing up, rather something like this:🧍.. kind of a bad example, but i think you get what i mean!)

i know it’s quite taboo, and a bit weird, i believe it’s still a beautiful poem. 

here’s the link if anyone’s interested in reading!

http://www.telelib.com/authors/S/SwinburneAlgernonCharles/verse/p1/leper.html

if you’d like any more recommendations for his work, i believe Laus Veneis is a lovely piece.