The fourteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum gives this as follows:
Perle plesaunte to prynces paye,
To clanly clos in gold so clere,
Oute of oryent I hardyly saye,
Ne proved I never her precios pere,—
So rounde, so reken in uche a raye,
So smal, so smothe her sydez were,—
Queresoever I jugged gemmez gaye,
I sette hyr sengeley in synglere.
And from a modern rendering of “Cleanness” we quote: