Has she a heart? The ladies of Whitehall
Are not so skittish, else does Darrell lie
Most villainously. Often hath he said
The art of blushing 's a lost art at Court.
If so, good riddance! This one here lets love
Play beggar to her prudery, and starve,
Feeding him ever on looks turned aside.
To be so young, so fair, and wise withal!
Lets love starve? Nay, I think starves merely me.
For when was ever woman logical
Both day and night-time? Not since Adam fell!
I doubt a lover somewhere. What shrewd bee
Hath buzzed betimes about this clover-top?
Belike some scrivener's clerk at Bideford,
With long goose-quill and inkhorn at his thigh--
Methinks I see the parchment face of him;
Or one of those swashbuckler Devon lads
That haunt the inn there, with red Spanish gold,
Rank scurvy knaves, ripe fruit for gallows-tree;
Or else the sexton's son"--here Wyndham laughed,
Though not a man of mirth--indeed, a man
Of niggard humor; but that sexton's son--
Lean as the shadow cast by a church spire,
Eyes deep in the sockets, noseless, high cheek-boned,
Like nothing in the circle of this earth
But a death's-head that from a mural slab
Within the chancel leers through sermon-time,
Making a mock of poor mortality.
The fancy touched him, and he laughed a laugh
That from his noonday slumber roused an owl