And by this there'll scarce be a stump in her yellow gums,
And not a red hair to her nodding poll--
That shock of flame a shrivelled, grizzled wisp
Like bracken after a heathfire; that creamy skin,
Like a plucked hen's. But she'd a merry eye,
The giglet; and that coppertop of hers
Was good to think on of a nippy morning:
While you--but you were young then ...

ELIZA:
Young and daft.

EZRA:
Nay, not so gite; for I was handsome then.

ELIZA:
Ay, the braw birkie of that gairishon
Of menseless slubberdegullions: and I trusted
My eyes, and other people's tongues, in those days:
And you'd a tongue to glaver a guff of a girl,
The devil's own; and whatever's gone from you,
You've still a tongue, though with a difference:
Now it's all edge.

EZRA:
The knife that spreads the butter
Will slice the loaf. But it's sharper than my teeth.

ELIZA:
Ay, tongues cut deeper than any fang can bite,
Sore-rankling wounds.

EZRA:
You talk of tongues! I'm deaf:
But, for my sins, I cannot be deaf to yours,
Nattering me into my grave; and, likely, your words
Will flaffer about my lugs like channering peesweeps,
When I lie cold.

ELIZA:
Yes, I was young, and agape
For your wheedling flum, till it fleeched my self from me.
There's something in a young girl seems to work
Against her better sense, and gives her up,
Almost in spite of her.

EZRA:
It's nature.

ELIZA:
Then
Nature has more than enough to answer for.
Young, ay! And you, as gallant as the stallion,
With ribboned tail and mane, that pranced to the crack
Of my father's whip, when first I saw you gaping,
Kenspeckle in that clamjamfrey of copers.

EZRA:
Love at first sight!

ELIZA:
And I was just as foolish
As you were braw.

EZRA:
Well, we'd our time of it,
Fools, or no fools. And you could laugh in those days,
And didn't snigger like the ginger fizgig.
Your voice was a bird's: but you laugh little now;
And--well, maybe, your voice is still a bird's.
There's birds and birds. Then, 'twas a cushy-doo's
That's brooding on her nest, while the red giglet's
Was a gowk's at the end of June. Do you call to mind
We sat the livelong day in a golden carriage,
Squandering a fortune, forby the tanner I dropt?
They wouldn't stop to let me pick it up;
And when we alighted from the ro