“I do—if they should be horrid, and are horrid enough.”
“Coleridge thought afterwards it was better to leave it out!”
“Tell it me, anyhow.”
“His bones were black with many a crack,
All black and bare, I ween;
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust,
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust,
They were patched with purple and green.
“—There! What do you think of that?”
“He is nothing like so horrid as the woman!”
“She is more horrid in the first edition.”
“How?”
“Her lips are red, her looks are free,
Her locks are yellow as gold;
Her skin is as white as leprosy,
And she is far liker Death than he;
Her flesh makes the still air cold.”
“I do think that is worse. Tell me again how the other goes.”