Classic Poem

No leprosie can be compar'd sinne,
It doth so spread
Without, within.
'Tis at my heart, and 'tis gone o're my head;
No part is free from top to toe,
'Tis here, 'tis there, above, below,

Nor doth it only spread through every part,—
'Tis heavy too
And on my heart,
Like lead it lyes, so that I cannot do
The good I would; the weight's so great
That under it I sink, I sweat.

Some fools indeed, whose hearts are hard as flint,
And neck's as steel
Take pleasure in't,
And run away with't, yet no burden feel,
But sport make of it every day,
And with it as a feather play.

Whiles they make light thereof, O let me fear
And it avoid,
As if it were
The greatest plague by which man is destroyed;
The heaviest burthen, that will crack
My heart-strings, and even break my back.

And since I feel it such a ponderous thing,
A way I find
That ease will bring,
And from this plague, this burthen free my mind:
Upon Thy back Lord, let it fall,
That's strong enough to bear it all.