Master Hugues Of Saxe-gotha Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDCD EFGFE CCCCC H CCCCC H IJIJI H KCKCK H HLHLH H MCMCM C NONON C CPCP C QHQHQ C CCCCC C CRCRC H PPPPP H CSCSC H HPHPH H CCCCC H PPPPT C SSSSS C CCCC C CPCPC C HLHLH C ACACA H CPCPC H CUCVC H HAHAH H APAPA H WWWWW C APAPCCCCP PWSAHLSSWAn imaginary composer | A |
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I | - |
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Hist but a word fair and soft | B |
Forth and be judged Master Hugues | C |
Answer the question I've put you so oft | D |
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues | C |
See we're alone in the loft | D |
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II | - |
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I the poor organist here | E |
Hugues the composer of note | F |
Dead though and done with this many a year | G |
Let's have a colloquy something to quote | F |
Make the world prick up its ear | E |
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III | - |
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See the church empties apace | C |
Fast they extinguish the lights | C |
Hallo there sacristan Five minutes' grace | C |
Here's a crank pedal wants setting to rights | C |
Baulks one of holding the base | C |
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IV | H |
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See our huge house of the sounds | C |
Hushing its hundreds at once | C |
Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds | C |
O you may challenge them not a response | C |
Get the church saints on their rounds | C |
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V | H |
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Saints go their rounds who shall doubt | I |
March with the moon to admire | J |
Up nave down chancel turn transept about | I |
Supervise all betwixt pavement and spire | J |
Put rats and mice to the rout | I |
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VI | H |
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Aloys and Jurien and Just | K |
Order things back to their place | C |
Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust | K |
Rub the church plate darn the sacrament lace | C |
Clear the desk velvet of dust | K |
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VII | H |
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Here's your book younger folks shelve | H |
Played I not off hand and runningly | L |
Just now your masterpiece hard number twelve | H |
Here's what should strike could one handle it cunningly | L |
HeIp the axe give it a helve | H |
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VIII | H |
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Page after page as I played | M |
Every bar's rest where one wipes | C |
Sweat from one's brow I looked up and surveyed | M |
O'er my three claviers yon forest of pipes | C |
Whence you still peeped in the shade | M |
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IX | C |
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Sure you were wishful to speak | N |
You with brow ruled like a score | O |
Yes and eyes buried in pits on each cheek | N |
Like two great breves as they wrote them of yore | O |
Each side that bar your straight beak | N |
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X | C |
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Sure you said Good the mere notes | C |
Still couldst thou take my intent | P |
Know what procured me our Company's votes | C |
A master were lauded and sciolists shent | P |
Parted the sheep from the goats '' | - |
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XI | C |
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Well then speak up never flinch | Q |
Quick ere my candle's a snuff | H |
Burnt do you see to its uttermost inch | Q |
I believe in you but that's not enough | H |
Give my conviction a clinch | Q |
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XII | C |
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First you deliver your phrase | C |
Nothing propound that I see | C |
Fit in itself for much blame or much praise | C |
Answered no less where no answer needs be | C |
Off start the Two on their ways | C |
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XIII | C |
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Straight must a Third interpose | C |
Volunteer needlessly help | R |
In strikes a Fourth a Fifth thrusts in his nose | C |
So the cry's open the kennel's a yelp | R |
Argument's hot to the close | C |
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XIV | H |
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One dissertates he is candid | P |
Two must discept has distinguished | P |
Three helps the couple if ever yet man did | P |
Four protests Five makes a dart at the thing wished | P |
Back to One goes the case bandied | P |
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XV | H |
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One says his say with a difference | C |
More of expounding explaining | S |
All now is wrangle abuse and vociferance | C |
Now there's a truce all's subdued self restraining | S |
Five though stands out all the stiffer hence | C |
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XVI | H |
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One is incisive corrosive | H |
Two retorts nettled curt crepitant | P |
Three makes rejoinder expansive explosive | H |
Four overbears them all strident and strepitant | P |
Five O Danaides O Sieve | H |
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XVII | H |
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Now they ply axes and crowbars | C |
Now they prick pins at a tissue | C |
Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's | C |
Worked on the bone of a lie To what issue | C |
Where is our gain at the Two bars | C |
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XVIII | H |
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Est fuga volvitur rota | P |
On we drift where looms the dim port | P |
One Two Three Four Five contribute their quota | P |
Something is gained if one caught but the import | P |
Show it us Hugues of Saxe Gotha | T |
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XIX | C |
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What with affirming denying | S |
Holding risposting subjoining | S |
All's like it's like for an instance I'm trying | S |
There See our roof its gilt moulding and groining | S |
Under those spider webs lying | S |
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XX | C |
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So your fugue broadens and thickens | C |
Greatens and deepens and lengthens | C |
Till we exclaim But where's music the dickens | C |
Blot ye the gold while your spider web strengthens | C |
Blacked to the stoutest of tickens '' | - |
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XXI | C |
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I for man's effort am zealous | C |
Prove me such censure unfounded | P |
Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous | C |
Hopes 'twas for something his organ pipes sounded | P |
Tiring three boys at the bellows | C |
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XXII | C |
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Is it your moral of Life | H |
Such a web simple and subtle | L |
Weave we on earth here in impotent strife | H |
Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle | L |
Death ending all with a knife | H |
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XXIII | C |
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Over our heads truth and nature | A |
Still our life's zigzags and dodges | C |
Ins and outs weaving a new legislature | A |
God's gold just shining its last where that lodges | C |
Palled beneath man's usurpature | A |
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XXIV | H |
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So we o'ershroud stars and roses | C |
Cherub and trophy and garland | P |
Nothings grow something which quietly closes | C |
Heaven's earnest eye not a glimpse of the far land | P |
Gets through our comments and glozes | C |
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XXV | H |
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Ah but traditions inventions | C |
Say we and make up a visage | U |
So many men with such various intentions | C |
Down the past ages must know more than this age | V |
Leave we the web its dimensions | C |
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XXVI | H |
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Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf | H |
Proved a mere mountain in labour | A |
Better submit try again what's the clef | H |
'Faith 'tis no trifle for pipe and for tabor | A |
Four flats the minor in F | H |
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XXVII | H |
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Friend your fugue taxes the finger | A |
Learning it once who would lose it | P |
Yet all the while a misgiving will linger | A |
Truth's golden o'er us although we refuse it | P |
Nature thro' cobwebs we string her | A |
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XXVIII | H |
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Hugues I advise Me Pn | W |
Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon | W |
Bid One Two Three Four Five clear the arena | W |
Say the word straight I unstop the full organ | W |
Blare out the mode Palestrina | W |
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XXIX | C |
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While in the roof if I'm right there | A |
Lo you the wick in the socket | P |
Hallo you sacristan show us a light there | A |
Down it dips gone like a rocket | P |
What you want do you to come unawares | C |
Sweeping the church up for first morning prayers | C |
And find a poor devil has ended his cares | C |
At the foot of your rotten runged rat riddled stairs | C |
Do I carry the moon in my pocket | P |
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A fugue is a short melody | P |
Keyboard of organ | W |
A note in music | S |
The daughters of Danaus condemned to pour water | A |
into a sieve | H |
The Spanish casuist so severely mauled by Pascal | L |
A quick return in fencing | S |
A closely woven fabric | S |
Giovanni P da Palestrina celebrated musician | W |
Robert Browning
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