Too wise to put
Your fingers ’twixt the cleaver and the block?
Jealous—I wonder? Anyhow, it seems,
I’ve got a daughter, too. Alone, you say?
However long I stayed, I’d have to go
Alone, at last: and I’d as lief be gone,
While I can carry myself on my two pins.
Being buried with the Barrasfords is a chance
I’ve little mind to risk a second time:
I’m too much of a Haggard, to want to rise,
At the last trump, among a flock of bleaters.
If I’ve my way, there’ll be stampeding hoofs
About me, startled at the crack of doom.
Michael:
When you’ve done play-acting ...
Bell:
Play-acting? Ay: I’m through:
Exit the villain: ring the curtain down
On the happy ending—bride and bridegroom seated
On either side the poor, but pious, hearth.
Michael:
I’d as soon argue with a weathercock
As with a woman ...
Bell:
Yet the weathervanes
Are always cocks, not hens.
Michael: