Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant, Five ... O Danaides,<*4> O Sieve!
XVII.
Now, they ply axes and crowbars;
Now, they prick pins at a tissue Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's<*5>
Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue?
Where is our gain at the Two-bars?
XVIII.
_Est fuga, volvitur rota._
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,<*6> 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?''<*7>
XXI.
I for man's effort am zealous:
Prove me such censure unfounded!
Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous---Hopes 'twas for something, his organ-pipes sounded, Tiring three boys at the bellows?
XXII.
Is it your moral of Life?
Such a web, ****** 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, Proved a mere mountain in labour?
Better submit; try again; what's the clef?
'Faith, 'tis no trifle for pipe and for tabor---Four flats, the minor in F.
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 _Me<a^> P<ae>n<a^>_
(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._<*8>
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!
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 has ended his cares At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs?
Do I carry the moon in my pocket?
* 1 A fugue is a short melody.
* 2 Keyboard of organ.
* 3 A note in music.
* 4 The daughters of Danaus, condemned to pour water * into a sieve.
* 5 The Spanish casuist, so severely mauled by Pascal.
* 6 A quick return in fencing.
* 7 A closely woven fabric.
* 8 _Giovanni P. da Palestrina_, celebrated musician (1524-1594).
