distiches, as she does not only repeat after him, but helps out his
verse, and furnishes him with rhymes:-


He raged, and kept as heavy a coil as
Stout Hercules for loss of Hylas;
Forcing the valleys to repeat
The accents of his sad regret;
He beat his breast, and tore his hair,
For loss of his dear crony bear:
That Echo from the hollow ground
His doleful wailings did resound
More wistfully by many times,
Than in small poets' splay-foot rhymes,
That make her, in their rueful stories,
To answer to int'rogatories,
And most unconscionably depose
Things of which she nothing knows;
And when she has said all she can say,
'Tis wrested to the lover's fancy.
Quoth he, "O whither, wicked Bruin,
Art thou fled to my"--Echo, Ruin?
"I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a step
For fear." Quoth Echo, Marry guep.
"Am I not here to take thy part?"
Then what has quell'd thy stubborn heart?
Have these bones rattled, and this head
So often in thy quarrel bled?
Nor did I ever winch or grudge it,
For thy dear sake." Quoth she, Mum budget.