17
Avis:
Keep your paints,
To use upon your own fast withering cheek;
Young blood is still the finest rouge, and locks
One's own far better than the high-pil'd plaits,
Shorn from the gaol imprison'd, mad or dead!
Madam Pomeroy:
I am not Avis, a mere girl like you,
But many a man, aye, and the most of men,
Prefer a woman form'd to a raw girl.
Avis:
Well, I have heard it oft, and now believe
God's good to women, that they never mark
Their long desir'd beauty's slow decay!
Once lovely still is lovely, to the eyes
That peer into the mirror at herself,
And shall be, till the dim eyes see no more.
Her new sheep's teeth more even than her own,
