- Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch I believe in you, but that's not enough: Give my conviction a clinch!

XII.

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.

XIII.

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.

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.

One is incisive, corrosive;

XVI.

Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant;

Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;
Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant:
Five... O Danaides, 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

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, 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?

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 labor?
Better submit; try again; what's the clef?
'Faith, 't is 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, through cobwebs we string her.

XXVIII.

Hugues! I advise meâ 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.

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?

THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES

A TRAGEDY

1843

The Grand-Master's Prefect.
The Patriarch's Nuncio.

Initiated Druses

PERSONS.

The Republic's Admiral.

LOYS DE DREUX, Knight-Novice.

· DJABAL, KHALIL, ANAEL, MAANI, KarsHook, Raghib, AYOOB, and others.

Uninitiated Druses. Prefect's Guard, Nuncio's Attendants, Admiral's Force.

TIME, 14-.

PLACE, An Islet of the Southern Sporades, colonized by Druses of Lebanon, · and garrisoned by the Knights-Hospitallers of Rhodes.

SCENE, A Hall in the Prefect's Palace.

ACT I.

Enter stealthily KARSHOOK, RAGHIB, AYOOB, and other initiated Druses, each as he enters casting off a robe that conceals his distinctive black vest and white turban; then, as giving a loose to exultation, —

Kar. The moon is carried off in purple fire:

Day breaks at last! Break glory, with the day,
On Djabal's dread incarnate mystery
Now ready to resume its pristine shape
Of Hakeem, as the Khalif vanished erst
In what seemed death to uninstructed eyes,
On red Mokattam's verge
- our Founder's flesh,
As he resumes our Founder's function!

- Death

Ragh.
Sweep to the Christian Prefect that enslaved
So long us sad Druse exiles o'er the sea!

Ay. Most joy be thine, O Mother-mount! Thy brood Returns to thee, no outcasts as we left,

But thus but thus! Behind, our Prefect's corse;

Before, a presence like the morning — thine,

Absolute Djabal late, God Hakeem now
That day breaks!

Kar.
Off then, with disguise at last!
As from our forms this hateful garb we strip,
Lose every tongue its glozing accent too,
Discard each limb the ignoble gesture! Cry,
'Tis the Druse Nation, warders on our Mount
Of the world's secret, since the birth of time,

No kindred slips, no offsets from thy stock, No spawn of Christians are we, Prefect, we

Who rise.

Ay.
Ragh.

Spoil of the spoiler! Brave!

[They begin to tear down, and to dispute for, the decorations of the

hall.

Take anything beside! Lo, spire on spire,
Curl serpentwise wreathed columns to the top
O' the roof, and hide themselves mysteriously
Among the twinkling lights and darks that haunt
Yon cornice! Where the huge veil, they suspend
Before the Prefect's chamber of delight,
Floats wide, then falls again as if its slave,
The scented air, took heart now, and anon
Lost heart to buoy its breadths of gorgeousness
Above the gloom they droop in all the porch
Is jewelled o'er with frostwork charactery;

And, see, yon eight-point cross of white flame, winking
Hoar-silvery like some fresh-broke marble stone:
Raze out the Rhodian cross there, so thou leav'st me
This single fringe!

Ay.

Ha, wouldst thou, dog-fox? Help! - Three hand-breadths of gold fringe, my son was set To twist, the night he died!

Kar.

Nay, hear the knave!

And I could witness my one daughter borne,

A week since, to the Prefect's couch, yet fold

These arms, be mute, lest word of mine should mar
Our Master's work, delay the Prefect here
A day, prevent his sailing hence for Rhodes
How know I else?-Hear me denied my right
By such a knave!