--
O, they knew words to shame a carter's face!
Merrick:
This is the thought you would be quiet in!
Huff:
Where else can I be quiet? Now there's an end
Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made
Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind,
When I stood in the midst of those bare women,
All at once, outburst with a rising buzz,
A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me:
Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell,
Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud.
I beat them down; and now I cannot tell
For certain what they were. I can call up
Naught venturesome and darting like their style;
Very tame braveries now!--O Shale's the man
To smile upon the End of the World; 'tis Shale
Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself
With thinking pride in what a man may do.--
I wish I had seen those women more than once!
Vine:
Well, here's an upside down! This is old Huff!
What have you been in your heart all these years?
The man you were or the new man you are?
Huff:
Just a dead flesh!
Merrick:
Nay, Huff the good man at least
Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin.
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