Now there's a truce, all 's subdued, self-restrainingFive, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

One is incisive, corrosive —

16.

Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant

Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive —
Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant
Five... O Danaides, O Sieve!

17.

Now, they ply axes and crowbars
Now, they prick pins at a tissue

Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's

Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue? Where is our gain at the Two-bars?

Est fuga, volvitur rota!

18.

On we drift. Where looms the dim port?

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota – Something is gained, if one caught but the import Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha !

19.

What with affirming, denying,

Holding, risposting, subjoining,

All's like... it's like . . . for an instance I'm trying . .

There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining Under those spider-webs lying!

20

So your fugue broadens and thickens,

Greatens and deepens and lengthens,

Till one exclaims "But where's music, the dickens? Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens, Blacked to the stoutest of tickens?"

21.

I for man's effort am zealous.

Prove me such censure's unfounded!

Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous

Hopes 'twas for something his organ-pipes sounded, Tiring three boys at the bellows?

Is it your moral of Life?

22.

Such a web, simple and subtle,

Weave we on earth here in impotent strife,

Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,

Death ending all with a knife?

23..

Over our heads Truth and Nature
Still our life's zigzags and dodges,
Ins and outs weaving a new legislature

God's gold just shining its last where that lodges, Palled beneath Man's usurpature!

24.

So we o'ershroud stars and roses,

Cherub and trophy and garland.

Nothings grow something which quietly closes
Heaven's earnest eye, not a glimpse of the far land
Gets through our comments and glozes.

25.

Ah, but traditions, inventions,

(Say we and make up a visage)

So many men with such various intentions

Down the past ages must know more than this age! Leave the web all its dimensions!

26.

Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf?
Proved a mere mountain in labour?
Better submit try again — what's the clef?
'Faith, it's no trifle for pipe and for tabor -
Four flats the minor in F.

27.

Friend, your fugue taxes the finger.
Learning it once, who would lose it?

Yet all the while a misgiving will linger

Truth's golden o'er us although we refuse it Nature, thro' dust-clouds we fling her!

28.

Hugues I advise med pœnâ

(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)

Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena ! Say the word, straight I unstop the Full-Organ, Blare out the mode Palestrina.

29.

While in the roof, if I'm right there

. . . Lo, you, the wick in the socket ! Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there! Down it dips, gone like a rocket!

What, you want, do you, to come unawares, Sweeping the church up for first morning-prayers, And find a poor devil at end of his cares

At the foot of your rotten-planked rat-riddled stairs? Do I carry the moon in my pocket?

10

BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY.

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, tho': cool, i'faith!

We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.

It's different, preaching in basilicas,

And doing duty in some masterpiece

Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!

I doubt if they 're half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church

Cost us a little

You take me

oh, they pay the price,

amply pay it! Now, we'll taik.

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation, nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 'tis our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?
Over the glass's edge when dinner 's done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise

truth that peeps