Yet am I with that Jewish child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow,
The smooth, transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within;
The grace of parting infancy

By blushes yet untamed;
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride;

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured

Upon them not forlorn,

Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite
Of poverty and wrong,

Doth here preserve a living light,
From Hebrew fountains sprung;
That gives this ragged group to cast
Around the dell a gleam

Of Palestine, of glory past,

And proud Jerusalem!

William Wordsworth.

Saxe-Gotha.

MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA.

[IST, but a word, fair and soft!

HIST,

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,

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!

See, the church empties apace.

Fast they extinguish the lights,

Hallo, there, sacristan! five minutes' grace!
Here's a crank pedal wants setting to rights,

Balks one of holding the base.

See, our huge house of the sounds

Hushing its hundreds at once,

Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds

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

(Saints 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,

Aloys and Jurien and Just,

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.)

Here's your book, younger folks shelve!
Played I not off-hand and runningly,

Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve?
Here's what should strike, could one handle it

cunningly.

Help the axe, give it a helve!

Page after page as I played,

Every bar's rest where one wipes

Sweat from one's brow, I looked up

and surveyed

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

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!

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!"

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!

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!

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!

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!

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,

Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant,

Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive,

Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant, –

Five... O Danaides, O Sieve!

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!

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 !

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!

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!"