MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA.

1.

HIST, but a word, fair and soft!

Forth and be judged, Master Hugues ! Answer the question I've put you so oft—

What do you mean by your mountainous fugues? See, we're alone in the loft,

I, the poor organist here,

2.

Hugues, the composer of note

Dead, though, and done with, this many a year
Let's have a colloquy, something to quote,
Make the world prick up its ear!

3.

See, the church empties a-pace.

Fast they extinguish the lights

Hallo, there, sacristan! five minutes' grace!

Here's a crank pedal wants setting to rights, Baulks one of holding the base.

4.

See, our huge house of the sounds

Hushing its hundreds at once,

Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds

Oh, you may challenge them, not a response Get the church saints on their rounds!

(Saints

5.

go their rounds, who shall doubt?

- March, with the moon to admire,

Up nave, down chancel, turn transept about,
Supervise all betwixt pavement and spire,
Put rats and mice to the rout

Order things back to their place,

Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust,
Rub the church plate, darn the sacrament lace,
Clear the desk velvet of dust.)

7.

Here's your book, younger folks shelve!

Played I not off-hand and runningly,

Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve?

O'er my three claviers, yon forest of pipes Whence you still peeped in the shade.

9.

Sure you were wishful to speak,

You, with brow ruled like a score,

Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek

Like two great breves as they wrote them of yore Each side that bar, your straight beak!

10.

Sure you said "Good, the mere notes!

Still, couldst thou take my intent,

Know what procured me our Company's votes
Masters being lauded and sciolists shent,
Parted the sheep from the goats!"

11.

Well then, speak up, never flinch!
Quick, ere my candle's a snuff

Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch

-

I believe in you, but that's not enough.

Give my conviction a clinch!

12.

First you deliver your phrase

-Nothing propound, that I see,

Fit in itself for much blame or much praise
Answered no less, where no answer needs be;
Off start the Two on their ways!

13.

Straight must a Third interpose,

Volunteer needlessly help

In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose,
So the cry's open, the kennel 's a-yelp,
Argument's hot to the close!

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!

15.

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.

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 importShow 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 . . .