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O
tell me all about
Anna Livia! I want to hear all
about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course,
we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now. You'll die
when you hear. Well, you know, when the old cheb went futt
and did what you know. Yes, I know, go on. Wash quit
and
don't be dabbling. Tuck up your sleeves and loosen your talk-
tapes. And don't butt me — hike!
—
when you bend. Or what-
ever it was they threed to make out he thried to two in the
Fiendish park. He's an awful old reppe. Look at the shirt of him!
Look at the dirt of it! He has all my water black on me. And it
steeping and stuping
since this time last wik. How many goes
is it I wonder I washed it? I know by heart
the places he likes to
saale, duddurty devil! Scorching my hand and starving
my fa-
mine to make his private linen public. Wallop it well
with your
battle and clean it. My wrists are wrusty rubbing the mouldaw
stains. And the dneepers of wet and the gangres of sin in it! What
was it he did a tail at all on Animal Sendai? And how long was
he under loch and neagh? It was put in the
newses what he did,
nicies and priers, the King fierceas Humphrey, with illysus dis-
tilling, exploits and all. But toms will till. I know he well. Temp
untamed will hist for no man. As you spring so shall you neap.
O, the roughty old rappe! Minxing marrage and making loof.
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Reeve Gootch was right and Reeve Drughad was sinistrous! And
the cut of him! And the strut
of him! How he used to hold his
head as high as a howeth, the famous eld duke alien, with a hump
of grandeur on him like a walking
wiesel rat. And his
derry's
own drawl and his corksown blather and his doubling
stutter
and his gullaway swank.
Ask Lictor Hackett or Lector
Reade
of Garda Growley or the Boy with the Billyclub. How
elster is
he a called at all? Qu'appelle? Huges Caput
Earlyfouler.
Or
where was he born or how was he found? Urgothland, Tvistown
on the Kattekat? New Hunshire, Concord on the Merrimake?
Who blocksmitt her saft
anvil or yelled lep to her pail?
Was her
banns never loosened in Adam and Eve's or were him and
her
but captain spliced?
For mine ether duck I thee drake.
And by
my wildgaze I thee gander. Flowey and Mount on the brink of
time makes wishes and fears for a happy isthmass.
She can show
all her lines, with love, license to play. And if they
don't remarry
that hook and eye may! O, passmore that and oxus another! Don
Dom Dombdomb and his wee follyo! Was his help inshored in
the Stork and Pelican against bungelars, flu and third risk par-
ties? I heard he dug good tin with his doll, delvan first and duvlin
after, when he raped her home, Sabrine asthore, in a parakeet's
cage, by dredgerous lands and devious
delts, playing catched and
mythed with the gleam of her shadda, (if a flic had
been there to
pop up and pepper
him!) past auld min's manse and Maisons
Allfou and the rest of incurables and the last of immurables, the
quaggy waag for
stumbling. Who sold you that jackalantern's
tale? Pemmican's pasty
pie! Not a grasshoop to ring
her, not an
antsgrain of ore. In a gabbard
he barqued it, the boat of life,
from the harbourless Ivernikan
Okean, till he spied the loom of
his landfall and he loosed two croakers from under his tilt,
the
gran Phenician rover. By the smell of her kelp they
made the
pigeonhouse. Like
fun they did! But where was Himself, the
timoneer? That marchantman
he suivied their scutties right over
the wash, his cameleer's
burnous breezing
up on him, till with
his runagate bowmpriss
he roade and borst her bar.
Pilcomayo!
Suchcaughtawan! And the whale's away with the grayling!
Tune
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your pipes and fall ahumming, you born ijypt, and you're no-
thing short of one! Well, ptellomey soon and curb your
escumo.
When they saw him shoot swift up her sheba sheath, like any
gay lord salomon, her bulls they were ruhring, surfed with
spree. Boyarka
buah!
Boyana bueh! He erned his lille
Bunbath
hard, our staly bred,
the trader. He did. Look at here. In this wet
of his prow. Don't you know he was kaldt a bairn of the brine,
Wasserbourne the waterbaby? Havemmarea, so he was!
H.C.E.
has a codfisck ee. Shyr she's nearly as badher as him herself.
Who? Anna Livia? Ay, Anna Livia. Do you know she was call-
ing bakvandets sals
from all around, nyumba noo, chamba
choo,
to go in till him, her erring cheef, and tickle the pontiff
aisy-oisy?
She was? Gota pot! Yssel that the limmat? As El Negro winced
when he wonced in La Plate. O, tell me all I want to hear,
how
loft she was lift a laddery
dextro! A coneywink
after the bunting
fell. Letting on she didn't care, sina
feza, me absantee, him man
in passession, the proxenete! Proxenete and phwhat is
phthat?
Emme for your reussischer
Honddu jarkon! Tell
us in franca
langua. And call a spate a spate. Did
they never sharee you ebro
at skol, you antiabecedarian?
It's just the same as if I was to go
par examplum now in conservancy's cause
out of telekinesis and
proxenete you. For coxyt sake and is that what she is?
Botlettle
I thought she'd act that loa. Didn't you spot her in her windaug,
wubbling up on an osiery
chair, with a meusic before her all
cunniform letters, pretending to ribble a reedy derg on a fiddle
she bogans without a band on? Sure she can't fiddan a dee,
with
bow or abandon! Sure, she can't! Tista suck. Well, I
never now
heard the like of that! Tell me moher. Tell me
moatst.
Well, old
Humber was as glommen as grampus, with the tares
at his thor
and the buboes for ages and neither bowman nor shot abroad
and
bales allbrant on the crests of
rockies and nera lamp in
kitchen or
church and giant's holes in Grafton's causeway and deathcap
mushrooms round Funglus grave and the great tribune's barrow
all darnels occumule, sittang sambre on his sett,
drammen and
drommen, usking queasy quizzers
of his ruful continence,
his
childlinen scarf to encourage his obsequies where
he'd check their
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debths in that mormon's thames, be questing and handsetl, hop,
step and a deepend, with his berths in their toiling
moil, his swal-
lower open from swolf to fore and the snipes of
the gutter pecking
his crocs, hungerstriking
all alone and holding doomsdag over
hunselv, dreeing his weird, with his dander up, and his fringe
combed over his eygs and droming
on loft till the sight of the
sternes, after zwarthy
kowse and weedy broeks
and the tits of
buddy and the loits of pest
and to peer was Parish worth thette
mess. You'd think all was dodo belonging to
him how he durmed
adranse in durance vaal. He had been belching for severn years.
And there she was, Anna Livia, she darent catch a
winkle of
sleep, purling around like a chit
of a child, Wendawanda, a finger-
thick, in a Lapsummer skirt and damazon cheeks, for to ishim
bonzour to her dear dubber Dan.
With neuphraties and sault
from his maggias. And an odd
time she'd cook him up blooms
of fisk and lay to
his heartsfoot her meddery eygs,
yayis, and
staynish beacons on toasc and a cupenhave so weeshywashy of
Greenland's tay or a dzoupgan
of Kaffue mokau an sable
or
Sikiang sukry or his ale of ferns in trueart pewter and
a shin-
kobread (hamjambo, bana?) for to plaise that man hog
stay his
stomicker till her pyrraknees shrunk to nutmeg graters while her
togglejoints shuck
with goyt and as rash as she'd russ with her
peakload of vivers up on her sieve (metauwero rage it swales
and
rieses) my hardey Hek
he'd kast them frome him, with a stour
of scorn, as much as to say you sow and you sozh,
and if he didn't
peg the platteau on
her tawe, believe you me, she was safe
enough. And then she'd esk to vistule a hymn, The
Heart Bowed
Down or The Rakes of Mallow or
Chelli Michele's La Calumnia è
un Vermicelli or a balfy bit ov old Jo Robidson. Sucho fuffing a
fifeing 'twould cut you in two! She'd bate the hen that crowed
on the turrace of Babbel. What harm if she knew how to cockle
her mouth! And not a mag out of Hum no more than out of
the
mangle weight. Is that a faith? That's the fact. Then
riding the
ricka and roya romanche, Annona, gebroren aroostokrat
Nivia,
dochter of Sense and Art, with Sparks'
pirryphlickathims funk-
ling her fan, anner frostivying
tresses dasht with virevlies,
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while the prom beauties sreeked nith their bearers' skins!
— in
a period gown of changeable
jade that would robe
the wood of
two cardinals' chairs and crush poor Cullen and smother
Mac-
Cabe. O blazerskate! Theirs porpor patches! And brahming
to
him down the feedchute, with her femtyfyx kinds of fondling
endings, the poother rambling
off her nose: Vuggybarney,
Wickerymandy! Hello, ducky, please don't die! Do
you know
what she started cheeping after, with a choicey voicey like water-
glucks or Madame Delba to Romeoreszk? You'll never guess.
Tell me. Tell me. Phoebe, dearest, tell, O tell me
and I loved you
better nor you knew. And letting on hoon var daft about the warbly
sangs from over holmen:
High hellskirt saw ladies hensmoker lily-
hung pigger: and soay and soan and so firth
and so forth in a tone
sonora and Oom Bothar below like Bheri-Bheri in his sandy
cloak, so umvolosy, as deaf as a
yawn, the stult! Go away! Poor
deef old deary! Yare only teasing! Anna
Liv? As chalk is my
judge! And didn't she up in sorgues and go and trot doon and
stand in her douro, puffing
her old dudheen, and every shirvant
siligirl or wensum farmerette walking the pilend roads,
Sawy,
Fundally, Daery or Maery, Milucre, Awny or
Graw, usedn't she
make her a simp or sign to slip inside by the sullyport? You don't
say, the sillypost? Bedouix but I do! Calling them in, one by one
(To Blockbeddum here! Here the Shoebenacaddie!) and legging
a jig or so on the sihl to show them how to shake their benders
and the dainty how to bring to mind the gladdest garments out
of sight and all the way of a maid with a man and making a sort
of a cackling noise like two and a penny or half a crown and hold-
ing up a silliver shiner. Lordy,
lordy, did she so? Well, of all the
ones ever I heard! Throwing all the neiss little whores
in the
world at him! To inny captured wench you wish of no
matter
what sex of pleissful ways two adda tammar a lizzy a
lossie to
hug and hab haven in Humpy's apron!
And what was the wyerye rima she made!
Odet! Odet! Tell
me the trent of it while I'm lathering hail
out of Denis Florence
MacCarthy's combies. Rise it, flut ye, pian
piena! I'm dying
down off my iodine feet until I lerryn Anna Livia's
cushingloo,
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that was writ by one and rede by two and trouved by a poule in
the parco! I can see that, I see you are. How does it
tummel?
Listen now. Are you listening? Yes, yes! Idneed I am! Tarn
your
ore ouse! Essonne
inne!
By earth end the cloudy but I badly want a brandnew bankside,
bedamp and I do, and a plumper
at that!
For the putty affair I have is wore out, so it is, sitting, yaping and
waiting for my old Dane hodder dodderer, my life in death companion,
my frugal key of our larder,
my much-altered camel's hump, my
jointspoiler, my maymoon's honey, my fool to the last Decemberer,
to wake himself out of his winter's doze and bore me down
like he
used to.
Is there irwell a lord of the
manor or a knight of the shire at strike,
I wonder, that'd dip me a dace
or two in cash for washing and
darning his worshipful socks for him now we're run out of horse-
brose and milk?
Only for my short
Brittas bed
made's as snug as it smells it's
out I'd lep and off with
me to the slobs della
Tolka or the plage au
Clontarf to feale the gay aire
of my salt troublin bay and the race
of the saywint up me ambushure.
Onon! Onon! tell me more. Tell me
every tiny teign. I want
to know every single ingul. Down to what made the potters
fly
into jagsthole. And why were the vesles vet. That homa fever's
winning me wome. If a mahun of the horse but hard me! We'd
be bundukiboi meet askarigal. Well, now comes the hazel-
hatchery part. After Clondalkin the Kings's Inns.
We'll soon be
there with the freshet. How many aleveens had she in tool?
I can't
rightly rede you that. Close only knows. Some say she had
three
figures to fill and confined herself to a hundred
eleven, wan by-
wan bywan, making meanacuminamoyas. Olaph lamm et, all that
pack? We won't have room in the kirkeyaard. She can't
remember
half of the cradlenames she smacked on them by the grace
of her
boxing bishop's infallible
slipper, the cane for Kund and abbles for
Eyolf and ayther nayther for Yakov Yea. A hundred and how?
They did well to rechristien her
Pluhurabelle. O loreley! What a
loddon lodes! Heigh ho! But it's quite on the cards she'll shed
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more and merrier, twills and trills, sparefours and spoilfives,
nord-
sihkes and sudsevers and ayes and neins to a litter. Grandfarthring
nap and Messamisery and the knave of all knaves and the joker.
Heehaw! She must have been a gadabount in her day, so she
must, more than most. Shoal she was,
gidgad. She had a flewmen
of her owen. Then a toss
nare scared that lass, so aimai
moe,
that's agapo! Tell me, tell me, how cam she camlin
through all
her fellows, the neckar she was, the diveline? Casting her perils
before our swains from Fonte-in-Monte to Tidingtown and
from Tidingtown tilhavet. Linking one and knocking the next,
tapting a flank and tipting a jutty and palling in and
pietaring
out and clyding by on her eastway. Waiwhou was the first thur-
ever burst? Someone he was, whuebra they were, in a tactic attack
or in single combat. Tinker, tilar,
souldrer, salor, Pieman Peace
or Polistaman. That's the thing I'm elwys on edge to
esk. Push
up and push vardar and come to uphill headquarters! Was
it
waterlows year, after Grattan or Flood, or when maids were in
Arc or when three stood hosting? Fidaris will find where
the
Doubt arises like Nieman from Nirgends found the Nihil.
Worry
you sighin foh, Albern, O Anser?
Untie the gemman's fistiknots,
Qvic and Nuancee! She can't put her hand on him for the mo-
ment. Tez thelon langlo, walking weary! Such a loon
waybash-
wards to row! She sid herself she hardly knows whuon the annals
her graveller was, a dynast
of Leinster, a wolf of the sea, or what
he did or how blyth she played or how, when, why, where and
who offon he jumpnad her and how it was gave her away.
She
was just a young thin pale soft shy slim slip of a thing
then,
sauntering, by silvamoonlake and he was a heavy trudging
lurching lieabroad
of a Curraghman, making his hay for whose
sun to shine on, as tough as the oaktrees (peats be with them!)
used to rustle that time down by the dykes of killing Kildare,
for forstfellfoss with a plash
across her. She thought she's sankh
neathe the ground with nymphant
shame when he gave her the
tigris eye! O happy fault! Me wish it was he!
You're wrong there,
corribly wrong! Tisn't only tonight you're anacheronistic! It
was ages behind that when nullahs were nowhere, in
county
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Wickenlow, garden of Erin, before she ever dreamt she'd lave
Kilbride and go foaming under Horsepass bridge, with the great
southerwestern windstorming
her traces and the midland's grain-
waster asarch for her track, to wend her ways
byandby, robecca
or worse, to spin and to grind,
to swab and to thrash,
for all her
golden lifey in the barleyfields
and pennylotts of Humphrey's
fordofhurdlestown and lie with a landleaper,
wellingtonorseher.
Alesse, the lagos of girly days! For the dove of the
dunas! Was-
ut? Izod? Are you sarthin suir? Not where the Finn fits
into the
Mourne, not where the Nore takes lieve of
Bloem, not where the
Braye divarts the Farer,
not where the Moy changez her minds
twixt Cullin and Conn tween Cunn and Collin? Or where Neptune
sculled and Tritonville
rowed
and leandros three bumped
heroines
two? Neya, narev, nen, nonni, nos! Then whereabouts in Ow and
Ovoca? Was it yst with wyst
or Lucan Yokan or where the hand
of man has never set foot? Dell me where, the fairy ferse time! I
will if you listen. You know the dinkel dale of
Luggelaw? Well,
there once dwelt a local heremite, Michael Arklow was
his river-
end name, (with many a sigh I aspersed his lavabibs!)
and one
venersderg in junojuly, oso sweet and so cool and so limber
she
looked, Nance the Nixie,
Nanon L'Escaut, in the silence, of the sy-
comores, all listening, the kindling curves you
simply can't stop
feeling, he plunged both of his newly anointed
hands, the core of
his cushlas, in her singimari saffron strumans of hair, parting them
and soothing her and mingling
it, that was deepdark and ample
like this red bog at sundown.
By that Vale Vowclose's lucydlac,
the reignbeau's heavenarches arronged orranged her.
Afroth-
dizzying galbs, her enamelled eyes indergoading him on to the
vierge violetian.
Wish a wish! Why a why? Mavro! Letty Lerck's
lafing light throw those laurals now on her daphdaph
teasesong
petrock. Maass! But the majik wavus has elfun anon meshes.
And Simba the Slayer of his Oga is
slewd. He cuddle not
help
himself, thurso that hot on him, he had to forget the monk in
the man so, rubbing her up and smoothing her down, he baised
his lippes in smiling mood, kiss akiss after
kisokushk
(as he
warned her niver to, niver to, nevar) on
Anna-na-Poghue's of
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the freckled forehead. While you'd parse
secheressa she hielt
her
souff. But she ruz two feet hire in her aisne aestumation. And
steppes on stilts
ever since. That was kissuahealing with bantur
for balm! O, wasn't he the bold priest? And wasn't she
the
naughty Livvy? Nautic Naama's now her
navn. Two lads in
scoutsch breeches went through her before that, Barefoot Burn
and Wallowme Wade, Lugnaquillia's noblesse pickts,
before she
had a hint of a hair at her fanny to hide or a bossom to
tempt a
birch canoedler not to
mention a bulgic porterhouse
barge. And
ere that again, leada, laida, all unraidy, too faint to buoy
the
fairiest rider, too frail to flirt with a cygnet's
plume, she was licked
by a hound, Chirripa-Chirruta, while poing her pee, pure
and
simple, on the spur of the hill in old
Kippure, in birdsong and
shearingtime, but first of all, worst of all, the wiggly
livvly, she
sideslipped out by a gap
in the Devil's glen while Sally
her nurse
was sound asleep in a sloot and, feefee fiefie, fell over a spillway
before she found her stride and lay and wriggled in all the stag-
nant black pools of rainy under a fallow coo and she
laughed
innocefree with her limbs aloft and a whole drove of
maiden
hawthorns blushing and looking askance upon
her.
Drop me the sound of the findhorn's
name, Mtu or Mti, som-
bogger was wisness. And drip
me why in the flenders was she
frickled. And trickle
me through was she marcellewaved or was
it weirdly a wig she wore. And whitside did they droop
their
glows in their
florry, aback to wist
or affront to sea? In fear to
hear the dear so near or longing loth and loathing
longing? Are
you in the swim or are you out? O go in, go on, go
an! I mean
about what you know. I know right well what you mean. Rother!
You'd like the coifs and guimpes,
snouty, and me to do the
greasy jub on old Veronica's wipers.
What am I rancing now
and I'll thank you? Is it a pinny or is it a surplice?
Arran, where's
your nose? And where's the starch? That's not the vesdre bene-
diction smell. I can tell from here by their eau
de Colo and the
scent of her oder they're Mrs
Magrath's. And you ought to
have
aird them. They've moist
come off her. Creases in silk they
are, not crampton lawn. Baptiste
me, father, for she has sinned!
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Through her catchment ring she freed them easy, with her hips'
hurrahs for her knees'dontelleries. The only parr with frills in
old the plain. So they are, I declare! Welland well! If tomorrow
keeps fine who'll come tripping to sightsee? How'll? Ask me
next what I haven't got! The Belvedarean exhibitioners. In their
cruisery caps and oarsclub
colours. What hoo, they band!
And
what hoa, they buck!
And here is her nubilee letters too. Ellis
on quay in scarlet thread. Linked
for the world on a flush-
caloured field. Annan exe
after to show they're not Laura Ke-
own's. O, may the diabolo twisk your seifety pin!
You child of
Mammon, Kinsella's Lilith! Now who has been tearing the
leg
of her drawars on her? Which leg is it? The one with the bells
on it. Rinse them out and aston along with you! Where
did I
stop? Never stop! Continuarration! You're not there yet. I
amstel waiting. Garonne, garonne!
Well, after it was put in the Mericy Cordial
Mendicants' Sitter-
dag-Zindeh-Munaday Wakeschrift (for once they sullied their
white kidloves, chewing cuds after their dinners of cheeckin and
beggin, with their show us it here and their mind out of that and
their when you're quite finished with the reading matarial), even
the snee that snowdon
his hoaring hair had a skunner against
him. Thaw, thaw, sava, savuto! Score Her Chuff
Exsquire!
Everywhere erriff you went and every bung you arver
dropped
into, in cit or suburb or in addled
areas, the Rose and Bottle or
Phoenix Tavern or Power's Inn or
Jude's Hotel or wherever you
scoured the countryside from Nannywater to Vartryville or from
Porta Lateen to the
lootin quarter you found his ikom etsched
tipside down or the cornerboys cammocking
his guy and Morris
the Man, with the role of a royss in his turgos the turrible,
(Evro-
peahahn cheic house, unskimmed
sooit and yahoort, hamman
now cheekmee, Ahdahm this way make, Fatima, half turn!)
reeling and railing
round the local as the peihos piped und uban-
jees twanged, with oddfellow's
triple tiara busby
rotundarinking
round his scalp. Like Pate-by-the-Neva or
Pete-over-Meer. This
is the Hausman all paven and stoned, that cribbed the Cabin that
never was owned that cocked his leg and hennad his Egg. And
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the mauldrin rabble around him in areopage, fracassing
a great
bingkan cagnan with their timpan crowders. Mind your Grimm-
father! Think of your Ma! Hing the Hong is his jove's hang-
nomen! Lilt a bolero,
bulling a law! She swore on croststyx nyne
wyndabouts she's be level with all the snags
of them yet. Par the
Vulnerable Virgin's Mary del Dame! So she said to
herself she'd
frame a plan to fake a shine, the mischiefmaker,
the like of it you
niever heard. What plan? Tell me quick and dongu so crould!
What the meurther did she mague? Well, she bergened a zakbag,
a shammy mailsack,
with the lend of a loan of the light of his
lampion, off one of her swapsons, Shaun the Post,
and then she
went and consulted her chapboucqs, old Mot Moore, Casey's
Euclid and the Fashion Display and made herself tidal to join
in the mascarete. O gig
goggle of gigguels. I can't tell you how!
It's too screaming to rizo, rabbit it all!
Minneha, minnehi mina-
aehe, minneho! O but you must, you must really! Make my hear
it gurgle gurgle, like the farest gargle gargle in the dusky
dirgle
dargle! By the holy well of Mulhuddart I swear I'd pledge my
chanza getting to heaven through Tirry and Killy's
mount of
impiety to hear it all, aviary
word! O, leave me my faculties,
woman, a while! If you don't like my story get out of
the punt.
Well, have it your own way, so. Here, sit down and do as you're
bid. Take my stroke
and bend to your bow. Forward in and pull
your overthepoise! Lisp
it slaney and crisp it quiet. Deel me long-
some. Tongue your time now. Breathe thet deep. Thouat's
the
fairway. Hurry slow and scheldt you go. Lynd us your blessed
ashes here till I scrub the canon's underpants.
Flow now. Ower
more. And pooleypooley.
First she let her hair fal and down it flussed
to her feet its
teviots winding coils.
Then, mothernaked, she sampood herself
with galawater and fraguant pistania mud, wupper and
lauar,
from crown to sole.
Next she greesed the groove
of her keel,
warthes and wears and mole and itcher, with antifouling butter-
scatch and turfentide and serpenthyme and with leafmould
she
ushered round prunella
isles and eslats dun, quincecunct, allover
her little mary. Peeld gold of waxwork her jellybelly
and her
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grains of incense anguille bronze. And
after that she wove a gar-
land for her hair. She pleated it. She plaited it. Of meadowgrass
and riverflags, the bulrush
and waterweed, and of fallen griefs of
weeping willow. Then she made her bracelets and
her anklets
and her armlets and a jetty
amulet for necklace
of clicking cobbles
and pattering pebbles
and rumbledown rubble,
richmond and
rehr, of Irish rhunerhinerstones and shellmarble bangles. That
done, a dawk of smut to
her airy ey, Annushka Lutetiavitch
Pufflovah, and the lellipos cream to her lippeleens
and the pick
of the paintbox for her pommettes, from strawbirry
reds to
extra violates, and she sendred her boudeloire
maids to His
Affluence, Ciliegia Grande and Kirschie
Real, the two chirsines,
with respecks from his missus, seepy and sewery, and a
request
might she passe of him for a minnikin. A call to pay
and light a
taper, in Brie-on-Arrosa, back in a
sprizzling. The cock striking
mine, the stalls bridely
sign, there's Zambosy waiting for Me!
She said she wouldn't be half her length away. Then, then, as
soon as the lump his back was turned, with her mealiebag slang
over her shulder, Anna Livia, oysterface, forth of her
bassein
came.
Describe her! Hustle along, why
can't you? Spitz on the iern
while it's hot. I wouldn't miss her for irthing on nerthe. Not for
the lucre of lomba
strait. Oceans of Gaud, I mosel
hear that!
Ogowe presta! Leste, before Julia sees her! Ishekarry and washe-
meskad, the carishy caratimaney? Whole lady fair? Duodecimo-
roon? Bon a ventura? Malagassy? What had she on, the
liddel oud
oddity? How much did she scallop, harness and
weights? Here
she is, Amnisty Ann! Call her calamity electrifies
man.
No electress at all but old Moppa
Necessity, angin
mother of
injons. I'll tell you a test. But you must sit still.
Will you hold
your peace and listen well to what I am going to say now? It
might have been ten or twenty to one of the night of Allclose or
the nexth of April when the flip of her hoogly igloo flappered and
out toetippit a bushman
woman, the dearest little moma ever
you saw, nodding around her, all smiles, with ems of embarras
and aues to awe, between two ages, a judyqueen,
not up to your
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elb. Quick, look at her cute
and saise her quirk
for the bicker she
lives the slicker she grows. Save us and tagus! No more? Werra
where in ourthe did you ever pick a Lambay chop as big as a
battering ram? Ay, you're right. I'm
epte to
forgetting, Like
Liviam Liddle did Loveme Long. The linth of my hough, I
say!
She wore a ploughboy's nailstudded clogs, a pair of
ploughfields
in themselves: a sugarloaf hat with a
gaudyquiviry peak and a
band of gorse for an arnoment
and a hundred streamers dancing
off it and a guildered pin to pierce it: owlglassy bicycles boggled
her eyes: and a fishnetzeveil for the sun not to spoil
the wrinklings
of her hydeaspects: potatorings boucled the loose laubes
of her
laudsnarers: her nude cuba
stockings were salmospotspeckled: she
sported a galligo shimmy of hazevaipar tinto
that never was fast
till it ran in the washing: stout stays, the rivals, lined her length:
her bloodorange bockknickers, a two in one garment, showed
natural nigger boggers, fancyfastened, free to undo: her
black-
stripe tan joseph was
sequansewn and teddybearlined, with wavy
rushgreen epaulettes
and a leadown here and there of royal
swansruff: a brace of gaspers stuck in her hayrope
garters: her
civvy codroy coat
with alpheubett buttons was boundaried round
with a twobar tunnel belt: a fourpenny bit in
each pocketside
weighed her safe from the blowaway windrush; she had a clothes-
peg tight astride on her joki's nose and she kep on grinding a
sommething quaint in her fiumy mouth and the rrreke of the
fluve of the tail of the gawan of her snuffdrab siouler's skirt
trailed ffiffty odd Irish miles behind her lungarhodes.
Hellsbells, I'm sorry I missed
her! Sweet gumptyum and no-
body fainted! But in whelk of her mouths? Was her naze alight?
Everyone that saw her said the dowce little
delia looked
a bit
queer. Lotsy trotsy, mind the poddle! Missus, be good
and don't
fol in the say! Fenny poor hex she must
have charred. Kickhams
a frumpier ever you saw! Making mush mullet's eyes at her
boys
dobelon. And they crowned her their chariton queen, all the
maids. Of the may? You don't say! Well for her she couldn't
see herself. I recknitz wharfore the darling murrayed
her mirror.
She did? Mersey me! There was a koros of drouthdropping
sur-
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facemen, boomslanging and plugchewing, fruiteyeing and flower-
feeding, in contemplation of the fluctuation and the
undification
of her filimentation, lolling and leasing on North Lazers'
Waal
all eelfare week by the Jukar Yoick's and as soon as they saw her
meander by that marritime
way in her grasswinter's weeds and
twigged who was under her archdeaconess bonnet,
Avondale's
fish and Clarence's poison, sedges an to aneber,
Wit-upon-
Crutches to Master Bates: Between our two
southsates and the
granite they're warming, or her face has been lifted
or Alp has doped!
But what was the game in her mixed baggyrhatty? Just the
tembo in her tumbo or pilipili from her pepperpot? Saas and
taas and specis bizaas. And where in thunder did she plunder?
Fore the battle or efter the ball? I want to get it frisk from the
soorce. I aubette my bearb it's worth while poaching on! Shake
it up, do, do! That's a good old son of a ditch! I promise I'll
make it worth your while. And I don't mean maybe. Nor yet
with a goodfor. Spey
me pruth and I'll tale you true.
Well, arundgirond in a waveney lyne
aringarouma she pattered
and swung and sidled, dribbling her boulder through narrowa
mosses, the diliskydrear on our drier side and the vilde
vetchvine
agin us, curara here,
careero there, not knowing which medway
or weser to strike it, edereider, making chattahoochee all to her
ain chichiu, like Santa
Claus at the cree of the pale and puny,
nistling to hear for their tiny hearties, her arms encircling
Isola-
bella, then running with reconciled Romas and
Reims,
on like a
lech to be off like a dart,
then bathing Dirty Hans' spatters with
spittle, with a Christmas box apiece for aisch and
iveryone of her
childer, the birthday gifts they dreamt they gabe her, the spoiled
she fleetly laid at our door! On the matt, by the pourch and
in-
under the cellar. The rivulets ran aflod to see, the
glashaboys, the
pollynooties. Out of
the paunschaup on to the pyre. And they all
about her, juvenile leads and ingenuinas, from the slime
of their
slums and artesaned
wellings, rickets
and riots, like the Smyly
boys at their vicereine's levee. Vivi vienne, little
Annchen! Vielo
Anna, high life! Sing us a sula, O, susuria!
Ausone sidulcis!
Hasn't she tambre! Chipping
her and raising a bit of a chir or a
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jary every dive she'd neb in her culdee sacco of wabbash she
raabed and reach out her maundy meerschaundize,
poor souvenir
as per ricorder and all for sore
aringarung, stinkers
and heelers,
laggards and primelads,
her furzeborn sons and dribblederry
daughters, a thousand and one of them, and wickerpotluck for
each of them. For evil and ever. And kiks the
buch. A tinker's
bann and a barrow to
boil his billy for Gipsy Lee; a cartridge of
cockaleekie soup for Chummy the Guardsman;
for sulky Pen-
der's acid nephew deltoid drops, curiously strong; a cough and
a rattle and wildrose
cheeks for poor Piccolina Petite MacFarlane;
a jigsaw puzzle of needles and pins and blankets and shins between
them for Isabel, Jezebel and Llewelyn Mmarriage; a brazen
nose
and pigiron mittens
for Johnny Walker Beg; a papar flag of the
saints and stripes for Kevineen O'Dea; a puffpuff for Pudge Craig
and a nightmarching hare for Techertim Tombigby; waterleg
and gumboots each for Bully Hayes and Hurricane
Hartigan;
a prodigal heart and fatted
calves for Buck Jones, the pride of
Clonliffe; a loaf of bread and a father's early
aim for Val from
Skibereen; a jauntingcar for Larry Doolin, the
Ballyclee jackeen;
a seasick trip on a government ship for Teague O'Flanagan; a
louse and trap for Jerry Coyle; slushmincepies for
Andy Mac-
kenzie; a hairclip and clackdish for Penceless
Peter; that twelve
sounds look for G. V. Brooke; a drowned doll, to face
down-
wards for modest Sister Anne Mortimer; altar falls for Blanchisse's
bed; Wildairs' breechettes for Magpeg
Woppington; to Sue Dot
a big eye; to Sam Dash a false step; snakes in clover, picked and
scotched, and a vaticanned
viper catcher's visa
for Patsy Presbys;
a reiz every morning for Standfast Dick and a drop every minute
for Stumblestone Davy; scruboak beads for beatified Biddy;
two
appletweed stools
for Eva Mobbely; for Saara Philpot a jordan
vale tearorne; a pretty box of Pettyfib's Powder for Eileen Aruna
to whiten her teeth and outflash Helen Arhone; a whippingtop
for Eddy Lawless; for Kitty
Coleraine of Butterman's Lane a
penny wise for her foolish pitcher; a putty
shovel for Terry the
Puckaun; an apotamus mask for Promoter Dunne; a niester egg
with a twicedated shell and a dynamight right for Pavl the Curate;
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a collera morbous for Mann in the
Cloack; a starr and girton for
Draper and Deane; for
Will-of-the-Wisp and Barny-the-Bark two
mangolds noble to sweeden their bitters; for
Oliver
Bound a
way in his frey; for Seumas, thought little, a crown he
feels big;
a tibertine's pile with a Congoswood cross on the back
for
Sunny Twimjim; a praises be and spare me days
for Brian-the
Bravo; penteplenty of
pity with lubilashings of lust for Olona
Lena Magdalena; for Camilla,
Dromilla, Ludmilla, Mamilla, a
bucket, a packet, a book and a pillow; for Nancy Shannon a
Tuami brooch; for Dora Riparia Hopeandwater a cooling douche
and a warmingpan; a pair of Blarney braggs for Wally
Meagher;
a hairpin slatepencil
for Elsie Oram to scratch her toby, doing
her best with her volgar fractions; an old
age pension for Betty
Bellezza; a bag of the blues for Funny Fitz; a Missa pro Messa for
Taff de Taff; Jill, the
spoon of a girl, for Jack, the broth of a boy;
a Rogerson Crusoe's Friday fast for Caducus Angelus
Rubicon-
stein; three hundred and sixtysix poplin tyne for revery warp in
the weaver's woof for
Victor Hugonot; a stiff steaded rake and
good varians muck for Kate the Cleaner; a hole in the
ballad for
Hosty; two dozen of cradles for J.F.X.P. Coppinger; tenpounten
on the pop for the daulphins born with five spoiled squibs for
Infanta; a letter to last a lifetime for Maggi beyond
by the ashpit;
the heftiest frozenmeat woman from Lusk to Livienbad for Felim
the Ferry; spas and
speranza and symposium's syrup for decayed
and blind and gouty Gough; a change of naves and joys of
ills
for Armoricus Tristram Amoor Saint Lawrence; a guillotine
shirt for Reuben Redbreast and hempen suspendeats
for Bren-
nan on the Moor; an oakanknee for Conditor Sawyer and
mus-
quodoboits for Great Tropical Scott; a C3 peduncle
for Karma-
lite Kane; a sunless map of the month, including the
sword and
stamps, for Shemus O'Shaun the Post; a jackal with hide
for
Browne but Nolan; a stonecold shoulder for Donn Joe Vance;
all lock and no stable for Honorbright
Merreytrickx; a big drum
for Billy Dunboyne; a guilty goldeny bellows, below me
blow
me, for Ida Ida and a hushaby rocker, Elletrouvetout, for Who-is-
silvier — Where-is-he?; whatever you like to swilly to swash,
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Yuinness or Yennessy, Laagen or Niger, for Festus King
and
Roaring Peter and Frisky Shorty and Treacle Tom and O. B.
Behan and Sully the Thug
and Master Magrath and Peter Cloran
and O'Delawarr Rossa and Nerone MacPacem and whoever you
chance to meet knocking around; and a pig's bladder balloon for
Selina Susquehanna Stakelum. But what did she give
to Pruda
Ward and Katty Kanel and Peggy Quilty and Briery Brosna and
Teasy Kieran and Ena Lappin and Muriel Maassy and Zusan Camac
and Melissa Bradogue and Flora Ferns and Fauna Fox-Good-
man and Grettna Greaney and Penelope Inglesante and Lezba
Licking like Leytha Liane and Roxana Rohan with Simpatica
Sohan and Una Bina Laterza and Trina La Mesme and Philomena
O'Farrell and Irmak Elly and Josephine Foyle and Snakeshead
Lily and Fountainoy Laura and Marie Xavier Agnes Daisy
Frances de Sales Macleay? She gave them ilcka madre's daughter
a moonflower and a bloodvein: but the grapes that ripe before
reason to them that devide the vinedress. So on Izzy, her shame-
maid, love shone befond her tears as from Shem, her penmight,
life past befoul his prime.
My colonial, wardha bagful! A bakereen's
dusind with tithe
tillies to boot.
That's what you may call a tale of a tub! And
Hi-
bernonian market! All that and more under one crinoline enve-
lope if you dare to break the porkbarrel seal. No
wonder they'd
run from her pison plague. Throw us your hudson soap
for the
honour of Clane! The wee
taste the water left. I'll raft it back,
first thing in the marne. Merced mulde! Ay, and don't
forget the
reckitts I lohaned
you. You've all the swirls your side of the cur-
rent. Well, am I to blame for that if I have? Who said you're to
blame for that if you have? You're a bit on the sharp
side. I'm on
the wide. Only snuffers'
cornets drifts my way that the cracka
dvine chucks out of his cassock,
with her estheryear's marsh
narcissus to make him recant
his vanitty fair. Foul
strips of his
chinook's bible I do be reading, dodwell disgustered but
chickled
with chuckles at the tittles
is drawn on the tattlepage. Senior ga
dito: Faciasi Omo! E omo fu fò. Ho! Ho! Senior ga dito: Faciasi
Hidamo! Hidamo se ga facessà. Ha! Ha! And Die Windermere
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Dichter and Lefanu (Sheridan's) old House by the Coachyard and
Mill (J.) On Woman with Ditto on the
Floss. Ja, a swamp for Alt-
muehler and a stone for his flossies! I know how racy
they move
his wheel. My hands are blawcauld
between isker and suda like
that piece of pattern chayney there, lying below. Or where is it?
Lying beside the sedge I saw it. Hoangho, my sorrow,
I've lost
it! Aimihi! With that turbary water who could see? So near and
yet so far! But O, gihon! I lovat a gabber. I could listen to maure
and moravar again. Regn onder
river. Flies do your float. Thick
is the life for mere.
Well, you know or don't you kennet
or haven't I told you
every telling has a taling
and that's the he and the she of it. Look,
look, the dusk is growing! My branches lofty are
taking root.
And my cold cher's gone
ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at?
It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw
Waterhouse's clogh.
They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh.
When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back,
my bach!
I'd want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong! There's
the Belle
for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de
Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out
the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the
showers! And
grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay,
we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I'll spread mine
on mine.
Flep! It's what I'm doing. Spread! It's churning chill.
Der went is
rising. I'll lay a few stones on the hostel sheets. A
man and his bride
embraced between them. Else I'd have sprinkled and folded them
only. And I'll tie my butcher's apron here. It's suety
yet. The
strollers will pass it by. Six shifts, ten kerchiefs,
nine to hold to
the fire and this for the code, the convent napkins,
twelve, one
baby's shawl. Good mother Jossiph knows, she said.
Whose
head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are
alle her childer,
say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them
farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no
more, more
again lost alla stranger. I've heard tell that same brooch of
the
Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dun-
ders de Dunnes in Markland's Vineland
beyond Brendan's herring
pool takes number nine in yangsee's hats. And
one of Biddy's
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beads went bobbing till she rounded up lost histereve
with a
marigold and a cobbler's
candle in a side strain of a main drain
of a manzinahurries off Bachelor's Walk. But
all that's left to the
last of the Meaghers in the loup of the years
prefixed and between
is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the front. Do you tell me
that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and poor Las Animas!
Ussa, Ulla, we're umbas all! Mezha, didn't you hear it a deluge
of
times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you deed! I
need, I need! It's that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars. It all
but husheth the lethest zswound.
Oronoko! What's your trouble?
Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono
on his statue
riding the high horse there forehengist? Father
of Otters, it is
himself! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen
Common?
You're
thinking of Astley's Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained
you making sugarstuck pouts
to the ghostwhite horse of the
Peppers. Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread
your washing proper! It's well I know your sort of slop. Flap!
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
Lord help you, Maria,
full of grease,
the load is with me! Your prayers. I sonht zo! Madammangut!
Were you lifting your elbow, tell us, glazy cheeks, in Conway's
Carrigacurra canteen? Was I what, hobbledyhips? Flop!
Your
rere gait's creakorheuman bitts your butts disagrees.
Amn't I
up since the damp dawn, marthared mary allacook, with Corri-
gan's pulse and varicoarse veins, my pramaxle smashed, Alice
Jane in decline and my oneeyed mongrel twice run over,
soaking
and bleaching boiler
rags, and sweating
cold, a widow like me,
for to deck my tennis champion son, the laundryman with the
lavandier flannels?
You won your limpopo limp fron the husky
hussars when Collars and Cuffs was heir to the town and
your
slur gave the stink to Carlow. Holy Scamander, I sar it
again!
Near the golden falls. Icis on us! Seints
of light! Zezere! Subdue
your noise, you hamble creature! What is it but a blackburry
growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns. Are
you meanam Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I meyne now,
thank all, the four of them, and the roar of them, that draves
that stray in the mist and old Johnny MacDougal along
with
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them. Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat
coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a
hedge or
my Garry come back from the Indes? Wait till the honeying
of
the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die! We see that
wonder in
your eye. We'll meet again, we'll part once more. The spot I'll
seek if the hour you'll find. My chart shines high where
the blue
milk's upset. Forgivemequick, I'm going! Bubye! And you,
pluck your watch, forgetmenot. Your evenlode.
So save to
jurna's end! My sights are swimming
thicker on me by the sha-
dows to this place. I sow home slowly now by own way,
moy-
valley way. Towy I too, rathmine.
Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha
anyhow, Anna Livia,
trinkettoes! And sure he was the quare old buntz too, Dear Dirty
Dumpling, foostherfather
of fingalls and dotthergills. Gammer
and gaffer we're all their gangsters. Hadn't he seven
dams to wive
him? And every dam had her seven crutches. And every
crutch
had its seven hues. And each hue had a differing
cry. Sudds for
me and supper for you and the doctor's bill for Joe John. Befor!
Bifur! He married his markets, cheap by foul, I know, like any
Etrurian Catholic Heathen, in their pinky limony creamy birnies
and their turkiss indienne
mauves. But at milkidmass
who was
the spouse? Then all that was was fair. Tys Elvenland! Teems of
times and happy returns. The seim anew.
Ordovico or viricordo.
Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Northmen's
thing made
southfolk's place but howmulty plurators made eachone in per-
son? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into
oure eryan! Hircus
Civis Eblanensis! He had buckgoat paps on
him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom.
Lord
save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering
daugh-
ters of. Whawk?
Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering
waters of. Flitter-
ing bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone
ahome?
What Thom Malone? Can't hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffey-
ing waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I
feel as old
as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter-
sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head
halls.
I feel
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as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who were
Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now!
Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or
stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters
of. Night!
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