And looking through it with lack-lustre eye,
Said, very softly, “She’s the proper soot!
Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags:
The last that passed was ugly as my cane;
The next that comes may be a very angel.
And, so from hour to hour, we bloom and bloom,
And then, from hour to hour, we fade and fade,
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The silly dude thus comment on the girls,
My toes began to itch like chilblain toes,