A Scene in London

BOTH of them deaf and close on eighty years old --
She stone-blind, and he nearly so--
Side by side crouching over the fire in a little London hovel--seven
shillings a week--
Their joints knotted with rheumatism--their faces all day long mute
like statues of all passing expression--(no cloud flying by, no gleam of
sunshine there)--lips closed and silent :

But for that now and then taking his pipe out of his mouth,
He puts his face close to her ear and yells just a word into it,
And she nods her blind head and gives a raucous screech in answer.