XIV. One dissertates, he is candid; Two must discept,-has distinguished; Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did; Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished: Back to One, goes the case bandied. XV. One says his say with a difference; More of expounding, explaining! All now is wrangle, abuse and vociferance; Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining: Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence, XVI. One is incisive, corrosive; Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant; Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive; XVII. 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. XVIII. 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 ! XIX. 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! XX. So your fugue broadens and thickens, Greatens and deepens and lengthens, Till we exclaim—" But where 's music, the dickens? "Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens "-Blacked to the stoutest of tickens ?" XXI. I for man's effort am zealous : Prove me such censure unfounded! Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous Hopes 't was for something, his organ pipes sounded, Tiring three boys at the bellows ? Is it your moral of Life? XXII. 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? XXIII. 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. XXIV. 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. XXV. 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 we the web its dimensions ! XXVI. Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf, Better submit; try again; what's the clef? XXVII. 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' cobwebs we string her. XXVIII. Hugues! I advise meâ pœnâ (Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon) Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena ! Blare out the mode Palestrina. XXIX. While in the roof, if I'm right there, Lo you, the wick in the socket! Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there! What, you want, do you, to come unawares, At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs? Do I carry the moon in my pocket? ABT VOGLER. (AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION.) I. WOULD that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,―alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed, Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! II. Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise ! |