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Leprosy In Houses

by Robert Herrick, 1648

When to a house I come, and see
The Genius wasteful, more than free:
The servants thumbless, yet to eat
With lawless tooth the flour of wheat:
The sons to suck the milk of kine,
More than the teats of discipline:
The daughters wild and loose in dress,
Their cheeks unstained with shamefac’dness:
The husband drunk, the wife to be
A bawd to incivility;
I must confess, I there descry,
A house spread through with leprosy.

Published in Hesperides
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