For gathering winter-faggots?’
‘He likes art,
Buys books and pictures . . of a certain kind;
Neglects no patient duty; a good son’ . . .
‘To a most obedient mother. Born to wear
His father’s shoes, he wears her husband’s too:
Indeed, I’ve heard its touching. Dear Lord Howe,
You shall not praise me so against your heart,
When I’m at worst for praise and faggots.’
‘Be
Less bitter with me, for . . in short,’ he said,
‘I have a letter, which he urged me so
To bring you . . I could scarcely choose but yield
Insisting that a new love passing through
The hand of an old friendship, caught from it
Some reconciling perfume.’
‘Love, you say?
My lord, I cannot love. I only find
The rhymes for love,—and that’s not love, my lord.
Take back your letter.’
‘Pause: you’ll read it first?’
‘I will not read it: it is stereotyped;
The same he wrote to,—anybody’s name,—
Anne Blythe, the actress, when she had died so true,
A duchess fainted in an open box:
Pauline, the dancer, after the great pas,
In which her little feet winked overhead
Like other fire-flies, and amazed the pit:
