Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE: FUST AND FRIENDS, by ROBERT BROWNING


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE: FUST AND FRIENDS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Up, up, up - next step of the staircase
Last Line: Fust. I foresee such a man.
Subject(s): Fust, Johann (1400-1466); Printing & Printers


(Inside the House of Fust, Mayence, 1457.)

First Friend. Up, up, up -- next step of the staircase
Lands us, lo, at the chamber of dread!
Second Friend. Locked and barred?
Third Friend. Door open -- the rare case!
Fourth Friend. Ay, there he leans -- lost wretch!
Fifth Friend. His head
Sunk on his desk 'twixt his arms outspread!

Sixth Friend. Hallo, -- wake, man, ere God thunderstrike Mayence
-- Mulct for thy sake who art Satan's, John Fust!
Satan installed here, God's rule in abeyance,
Mayence some morning may crumble to dust.
Answer our questions thou shalt and thou must!

Seventh Friend. Softly and fairly! Wherefore a-gloom?
Greet us, thy gossipry, cousin and sib!
Raise the forlorn brow, Fust! Make room --
Let daylight through arms which, enfolding thee, crib
From those clenched lids the comfort of sunshine!
First Friend. So glib

Thy tongue slides to "comfort" already?
Not mine!
Behoove us deal roundly: the wretch is distraught
-- Too well I guess wherefore! Behooves a Divine
-- Such as I, by grace, boast me -- to threaten one caught
In the enemy's toils, -- setting "comfort" at naught.
Second Friend. Nay, Brother, so hasty? I heard -- nor
long since --
Of a certain Black Art'sman who, -- helplessly bound
By rash pact with Satan, -- through paying -- why mince
The matter? -- fit price to the Church, -- safe and sound
Full a year after death in his grave-clothes was found.

Whereas 't is notorious the Fiend claims his due
During lifetime, -- comes clawing, with talons aflame,
The soul from the flesh-rags left smoking and blue:
So it happed with John Faust; lest John Fust fare the same, --
Look up, I adjure thee by God's holy name!

For neighbors and friends -- no foul hell-brood flock we!
Saith Solomon "Words of the wise are as goads:"
Ours prick but to startle from torpor, set free
Soul and sense from death's drowse!
First Friend. And soul, wakened, unloads
Much sin by confession: no mere palinodes!

-- "I was youthful and wanton, am old yet no sage:
When angry I cursed, struck and slew: did I want?
Right and left did I rob: though no war I dared wage
With the Church (God forbid!) -- harm her least ministrant --
Still I outraged all else. Now that strength is grown scant,

"I am probity's self" -- no such bleatings as these!
But avowal of guilt so enormous, it balks
Tongue's telling. Yet penitence prompt may appease
God's wrath at thy bond with the Devil who stalks
-- Strides hither to strangle thee!
Fust. Childhood so talks. --

Not rare wit nor ripe age -- ye boast them, my neighbors! --
Should lay such a charge on your townsman, this Fust
Who, known for a life spent in pleasures and labors
If freakish yet venial, could scarce be induced
To traffic with fiends.
First Friend. So, my words have unloosed

A plie from those pale lips corrugate but now?
Fust. Lost count me, yet not as ye lean to surmise.
First Friend. To surmise? to establish!
Unbury that brow!
Look up, that thy judge may read clear in thine eyes!
Second Friend. By your leave, Brother Barnabite! Mine to advise!

-- Who arraign thee, John Fust! What was bruited erewhile
Now bellows through Mayence. All cry -- thou hast trucked
Salvation away for lust's solace! Thy smile
Takes its hue from hell's smoulder!
Fust. Too certain! I sucked
-- Got drunk at the nipple of sense.
Second Friend. Thou hast ducked --

Art drowned there, say rather! Faugh -- fleshly disport!
How else but by help of Sir Belial didst win
That Venus-like lady, no drudge of thy sort
Could lure to become his accomplice in sin?
Folk nicknamed her Helen of Troy!
First Friend. Best begin

At the very beginning. Thy father, -- all knew,
A mere goldsmith ...
Fust. Who knew him, perchance may know this --
He dying left much gold and jewels no few:
Whom these help to court with, but seldom shall miss
The love of a leman: true witchcraft, I wis!

First Friend. Dost flout me? 'T is said, in debauchery's guild
Admitted prime guttler and guzzler -- O swine! --
To honor thy headship, those tosspots so swilled
That out of their table there sprouted a vine
Whence each claimed a cluster, awaiting thy sign

To out knife, off mouthful: when -- who could suppose
Such malice in magic? -- each sot woke and found
Cold steel but an inch from the neighbor's red nose
He took for a grape-bunch!
Fust. Does that so astound
Sagacity such as ye boast, -- who surround

Your mate with eyes staring, hairs standing erect
At his magical feats? Are good burghers unversed
In the humors of toping? Full oft, I suspect,
Ye, counting your fingers, call thumbkin their first,
And reckon a groat every guilder disbursed.

What marvel if wags, while the skinker fast brimmed
Their glass with rare tipple's enticement, should gloat
-- Befooled and beflustered -- through optics drink-dimmed --
On this draught and that, till each found in his throat
Our Rhenish smack rightly as Raphal? For, noce --

They fancied -- their fuddling deceived them so grossly --
That liquor sprang out of the table itself
Through gimlet-holes drilled there, -- nor noticed how closely
The skinker kept plying my guests, from the shelf
O'er their heads, with the potable madness.
No elf

Had need to persuade them a vine rose umbrageous,
Fruit-bearing, thirst-quenching! Enough!
I confess
To many such fool-pranks, but none so outrageous
That Satan was called in to help me: excess
I own to, I grieve at -- no more and no less.

Second Friend. Strange honors were heaped on thee --
medal for breast,
Chain for neck, sword for thigh: not a lord of the land
But acknowledged thee peer! What ambition possessed
A goldsmith by trade, with craft's grime on his hand,
To seek such associates?
Fust. Spare taunts! Understand --

I submit me! Of vanities under the sun,
Pride seized me at last as concupiscence first,
Crapulosity ever: true Fiends, every one,
Haled this way and that my poor soul: thus amerced --
Forgive and forget me!
First Friend. Had flesh sinned the worst,

Yet help were in counsel: the Church could absolve:
But say not men truly thou barredst escape
By signing and sealing ...
Second Friend. On me must devolve
The task of extracting ...
First Friend. Shall Barnabites ape
Us Dominican experts?
Seventh Friend. Nay, Masters, -- agape

When Hell yawns for a soul, 't is myself claim the task
Of extracting, by just one plain question, God's truth!
Where's Peter Genesheim thy partner? I ask
Why, cloistered up still in thy room, the pale youth
Slaves tongue-tied -- thy trade brooks no tattling forsooth!

No less he, thy famulus, suffers entrapping,
Succumbs to good fellowship: barrel a-broach
Runs freely nor needs any subsequent tapping:
Quoth Peter, "That room, none but I dare approach,
Holds secrets will help me to ride in my coach."
He prattles, we profit: in brief, he assures
Thou hast taught him to speak so that all men may hear
-- Each alike, wide world over, Jews, Pagans, Turks, Moors,
The same as we Christians -- speech heard far and near
At one and the same magic moment!
Fust. That's clear!

Said he -- how?
Seventh Friend. Is it like he was licensed to learn?
Who doubts but thou dost this by aid of the Fiend?
Is it so? So it is, for thou smilest! Go, burn
To ashes, since such proves thy portion, unscreened
By bell, book and candle! Yet lately I weened

Balm yet was in Gilead, -- some healing in store
For the friend of my bosom. Men said thou wast sunk
In a sudden despondency: not, as before,
Fust gallant and gay with his pottle and punk,
But sober, sad, sick as one yesterday drunk!

Fust. Spare Fust, then, thus contrite! -- who, youthful
and healthy,
Equipped for life's struggle with culture of mind,
Sound flesh and sane soul in coherence, born wealthy,
Nay, wise -- how he wasted endowment designed
For the glory of God and the good of mankind!

That much were misused such occasions of grace
Ye well may upbraid him, who bows to the rod.
But this should bid anger to pity give place --
He has turned from the wrong, in the right path to plod,
Makes amends to mankind and craves pardon of God.

"Yea, friends, even now from my lips the Heureka --
Soul saved!" was nigh bursting -- unduly elate!
Have I brought Man advantage, or hatched -- so to speak -- a
Strange serpent, no cygnet? 'T is this I debate
Within me,. Forbear, and leave Fust to his fate!

First Friend. So abject, late lofty? Methinks I spy respite.
Make clean breast, discover what mysteries hide
In thy room there!
Second Friend. Ay, out with them! Do Satan despite!
Remember what caused his undoing was pride!
First Friend. Dumb devil! Remains one resource to be tried!

Second Friend. Exorcise!
Seventh Friend. Nay, first -- is there any remembers
In substance that potent "Ne pulvis" -- a psalm
Whereof some live spark haply lurks 'mid the embers
Which choke in my brain. Talk of "Gilead and balm"?
I mind me, sung half through, this gave such a qualm

To Asmodeus inside of a Hussite, that, queasy,
He broke forth in brimstone with curses.
I'm strong
In -- at least the commencement: the rest should go easy,
Friends helping. "Ne pulvis et ignis" ...
Sixth Friend. All wrong!
Fifth Friend. I've conned till I captured the whole.
Seventh Friend. Get along!

"Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras,
Nam fulmina" ...
Sixth Friend. Fiddlestick! Peace, dolts and dorrs!
Thus runs it "Ne Numinis fulmina feras" --
Then "Hominis perfidi justa sunt sors
Fulmen et grando et horrida mors."

Seventh Friend. You blunder ... "Irati ne."
Sixth Friend. Mind your own business!
Fifth Friend. I do not so badly, who gained the monk's leave
To study an hour his choice parchment. A dizziness
May well have surprised me. No Christian dares thieve,
Or I scarce had returned him his treasure.
These cleave:

"Nos pulvis et cinis, trementes, gementes,
Venimus" -- some such word -- "ad te, Domine!
Da lumen, juvamen, ut sancta sequentes
Cor ... corda" ... Plague take it!
Seventh Friend. -- "erecta sint spe:"
Right text, ringing rhyme, and ripe Latin for me!

Sixth Friend. A Canon's self wrote it me fair: I was tempted
To part with the sheepskin.
Seventh Friend. Didst grasp and let go
Such a godsend, thou Judas? My purse had been emptied
Ere part with the prize!
Fust. Do I dream? Say ye so?
Clouds break, then! Move, world! I have gained my "Pou sto"!

I am saved: Archimedes, salute me!
Omnes. Assistance!
Help, Angels! He summons ... Aroint thee! -- by name,
His familiar!
Fust. Approach!
Omnes. Devil, keep thy due distance!
Fust. Be tranquillized, townsmen! The knowledge ye claim
Behold, I prepare to impart. Praise or blame, --

Your blessing or banning, whatever betide me,
At last I accept. The slow travail of years,
The long-teeming brain's birth -- applaud me, deride me, --
At last claims revealment. Wait!
Seventh Friend. Wait till appears
Uncaged Archimedes cooped-up there?
Second Friend. Who fears?

Here's have at thee!
Seventh Friend. Correctly now! "Pulvis et cinis" ...
Fust. The verse ye so value, it happens I hold
In my memory safe from initium to finis.
Word for word, I produce you the whole, plain enrolled,
Black letters, white paper -- no scribe's red and gold!

Omnes. Aroint thee!
Fust. I go and return.
(He enters the inner room.)
First Friend. Ay, 't is "ibis"
No doubt: but as boldly "redibis" -- who'll say?
I rather conjecture "in Orco peribis!"
Seventh Friend. Come, neighbors!
Sixth Friend. I'm with you! Show courage and stay
Hell's outbreak? Sirs, cowardice here wins the day!

Fifth Friend. What luck had that student of Bamberg who ventured
To peep in the cell where a wizard of note
Was busy in getting some black deed debentured
By Satan? In dog's guise there sprang at his throat
A flame-breathing fury. Fust favors, I note,

An ugly huge lurcher!
Seventh Friend. If I placed reliance
As thou, on the beads thou art telling so fast,
I'd risk just a peep through the keyhole.
Sixth Friend. Appliance
Of ear might be safer. Five minutes are past.
Omnes. Saints, save us! The door is thrown open at last!

Fust (re-enters, the door closing behind him).
As I promised, behold I perform! Apprehend you
The object I offer is poison or pest?
Receive without harm from the hand I extend you
A gift that shall set every scruple at rest!
Shrink back from mere paper-strips? Try them and test!

Still hesitate? Myk, was it thou who lamentedst
Thy five wits clean failed thee to render aright
A poem read once and no more? -- who repentedst
Vile pelf had induced thee to banish from sight
The characters none but our clerics indite?

Take and keep!
First Friend. Blessed Mary and all Saints about her!
Second Friend. What imps deal so deftly, -- five minutes suffice
To play thus the penman?
Third Friend. By Thomas the Doubter,
Five minutes, no more!
Fourth Friend. Out on arts that entice
Such scribes to do homage!
Fifth Friend. Stay! Once -- and now twice --

Yea, a third time, my sharp eye completes the inspection
Of line after line, the whole series, and finds
Each letter join each -- not a fault for detection!
Such upstrokes, such downstrokes, such strokes of all kinds
In the criss-cross, all perfect!
Sixth Friend. There's nobody minds

His quill-craft with more of a conscience, o'erscratches
A sheepskin more nimbly and surely with ink,
Than Paul the Sub-Prior: here's paper that matches
His parchment with letter on letter, no link
Overleapt -- underlost!
Seventh Friend. No erasure, I think --

No blot, I am certain!
Fust. Accept the new treasure!
Sixth Friend. I remembered full half!
Seventh Friend. But who other than I
(Bear witness, bystanders!) when he broke the measure
Repaired fault with "fulmen"?
Fust. Put bickerings by!
Here's for thee -- thee -- and thee, too: at need a supply
(Distributing Proofs.)

For Mayence, though seventy times seven should muster!
How now? All so feeble of faith that no face
Which fronts me but whitens -- or yellows, were juster?
Speak out lest I summon my Spirits!
Omnes. Grace -- grace!
Call none of thy -- helpmates! We'll answer apace!

My paper -- and mine -- and mine also -- they vary
In nowise -- agree in each tittle and jot!
Fust, how -- why was this?
Fust. Shall such "Cur" miss a "quare"?
Within, there! Throw doors wide! Behold who complot
To abolish the scribe's work -- blur, blunder and blot!

(The doors open, and the Press is discovered in operation.)

Brave full-bodied birth of this brain that conceived thee
In splendor and music, -- sustained the slow drag
Of the days stretched to years dim with doubt, -- yet believed thee,
Had faith in thy first leap of life! Pulse might flag --
-- Mine fluttered how faintly! -- Arch-moment might lag

Its longest -- I bided, made light of endurance,
Held hard by the hope of an advent which -- dreamed,
Is done now: night yields to the dawn's reassurance:
I have thee -- I hold thee -- my fancy that seemed,
My fact that proves palpable! Ay, Sirs, I schemed

Completion that's fact: see this Engine -- be witness
Yourselves of its working! Nay, handle my Types!
Each block bears a Letter: in order and fitness
I range them. Turn, Peter, the winch!
See, it gripes
What's under! Let loose -- draw! In regular stripes

Lies plain, at one pressure, your poem -- touched, tinted,
Turned out to perfection! The sheet, late a blank,
Filled -- ready for reading, -- not written but PRINTED!
Omniscient omnipotent God, thee I thank,
Thee ever, thee only! -- thy creature that shrank

From no task thou, Creator, imposedst!
Creation
Revealed me no object, from insect to Man,
But bore thy hand's impress: earth glowed with salvation:
"Hast sinned? Be thou saved, Fust! Continue my plan,
Who spake and earth was: with my word things began.

"As sound so went forth, to the sight be ex tended
Word's mission henceforward! The task I assign,
Embrace -- thy allegiance to evil is ended!
Have cheer, soul impregnate with purpose!
Combine
Soul and body, give birth to my concept -- called thine!

"Far and wide, North and South, East and West, have dominion
O'er thought, winged wonder, O Word!
Traverse world
In sun-flash and sphere-song! Each beat of thy pinion
Bursts night, beckons day: once Truth's banner unfurled,
Where's Falsehood? Sun-smitten, to nothingness hurled!"

More humbly -- so, friends, did my fault find redemption.
I sinned, soul-entoiled by the tether of sense:
My captor reigned master: I plead no exemption,
From Satan's award to his servant: defence
From the fiery and final assault would be -- whence?

By making -- as man might -- to truth restitution!
Truth is God: trample lies and lies' father, God's foe!
Fix fact fast: truths change by an hour's revolution:
What deed's very doer, unaided, can show
How 't was done a year -- month -- week -- day -- minute ago?

At best, he relates it -- another reports it --
A third -- nay, a thousandth records it: and still
Narration, tradition, no step but distorts it,
As down from truth's height it goes sliding until
At the low level lie-mark it stops -- whence no skill

Of the scribe, intervening too tardily, rescues
-- Once fallen -- lost fact from lie's fate there. What scribe
-- Eyes horny with poring, hands crippled with desk-use,
Brains fretted by fancies -- the volatile tribe
That tease weary watchers -- can boast that no bribe

Shuts eye and frees hand and remits brain from toiling?
Truth gained -- can we stay, at whatever the stage,
Truth a-slide, -- save her snow from its ultimate soiling
In mire, -- by some process, stamp promptly on page
Fact spoiled by pen's plodding, make truth heritage

Not merely of clerics, but poured out, full measure,
On clowns -- every mortal endowed with a mind?
Read, gentle and simple! Let labor win leisure
At last to bid truth do all duty assigned,
Not pause at the noble but pass to the hind!

How bring to effect such swift sure simultaneous
Unlimited multiplication? How spread
By an arm-sweep a hand-throw -- no helping extraneous --
Truth broadcast o'er Europe? "The goldsmith," I said,
"Graves limning on gold: why not letters on lead?"

So, Tuscan artificer, grudge not thy pardon
To me who played false, made a furtive descent,
Found the sly secret workshop, -- thy genius kept guard on
Too slackly for once, -- and surprised thee low-bent
O'er thy labor -- some chalice thy tool would indent

With a certain free scroll-work framed round by a border
Of foliage and fruitage: no scratching so fine,
No shading so shy but, in ordered disorder,
Each flourish came clear, -- unbewildered by shine,
On the gold, irretrievably right, lay each line.

How judge if thy hand worked thy will? By reviewing,
Revising again and again, piece by piece,
Tool's performance, -- this way, as I watched.
'T was through glueing
A paper-like film-stuff -- thin, smooth, void of crease,
On each cut of the graver: press hard! at release,

No mark on the plate but the paper showed double:
His work might proceed: as he judged -- space or speck
Up he filled, forth he flung -- was relieved thus from trouble
Lest wrong -- once -- were right never more: what could check
Advancement, completion? Thus lay at my beck --

At my call -- triumph likewise! "For," cried I, "what hinders
That graving turns Printing? Stamp one word -- not one
But fifty such, phoenix-like, spring from death's cinders, --
Since death is word's doom, clerics hide from the sun
As some churl closets up this rare chalice."
Go, run

Thy race now, Fust's child! High, O Printing, and holy
Thy mission! These types, see, I chop and I change
Till the words, every letter, a pageful, not slowly
Yet surely lies fixed: last of all, I arrange
A paper beneath, stamp it, loosen it!
First Friend. Strange!

Second Friend. How simple exceedingly!
Fust. Bustle, my Schoeffer!
Set type, -- quick, Genesheim! Turn screw now!
Third Friend. Just that!
Fourth Friend. And no such vast miracle!
Fust. "Plough with my heifer,
Ye find out my riddle," quoth Samson, and pat
He speaks to the purpose. Grapes squeezed in the vat

Yield to sight and to taste what is simple -- a liquid
Mere urchins may sip: but give time, let ferment --
You've wine, manhood's master! Well, "rectius si quid
Novistis im-per-ti-te!" Wait the event,
Then weigh the result! But, whate'er Thy intent,

O Thou, the one force in the whole variation
Of visible nature, -- at work -- do I doubt? --
From Thy first to our last, in perpetual creation --
A film hides us from Thee -- 'twixt inside and out,
A film, on this earth where Thou bringest about

New marvels, new forms of the glorious, the gracious,
We bow to, we bless for: no star bursts heaven's dome
But Thy finger impels it, no weed, peeps audacious
Earth's clay-floor from out, but Thy finger makes room
For one world's-want the more in Thy Cosmos: presume

Shall Man, Microcosmos, to claim the conception
Of grandeur, of beauty, in thought, word or deed?
I toiled, but Thy light on my dubiousest step shone:
If I reach the glad goal, is it I who succeed
Who stumbled at starting tripped up by a reed,

Or Thou? Knowledge only and absolute, glory
As utter be Thine who concedest a spark
Of Thy spheric perfection to earth's transitory
Existences! Nothing that lives, but Thy mark
Gives law to -- life's light: what is doomed to the dark?

Where's ignorance? Answer, creation! What height,
What depth has escaped Thy commandment -- to Know?
What birth in the ore-bed but answers aright
Thy sting at its heart which impels -- bids "E'en so,
Not otherwise move or be motionless, -- grow,

"Decline, disappear!" Is the plant in default
How to bud, when to branch forth? The bird and the beast
-- Do they doubt if their safety be found in assault
Or escape? Worm or fly, of what atoms the least
But follows light's guidance, -- will famish, not feast?

In such various degree, fly and worm, ore and plant,
All know, none is witless: around each, a wall
Encloses the portion, or ample or scant,
Of Knowledge: beyond which one hair's breadth, for all
Lies blank -- not so much as a blackness -- a pall

Some sense unimagined must penetrate: plain
Is only old license to stand, walk or sit,
Move so far and so wide in the narrow domain
Allotted each nature for life's use: past it
How immensity spreads does he guess? Not a whit.

Does he care? Just as little. Without? No, within
Concerns him? he Knows. Man Ignores -- thanks to Thee
Who madest him know, but -- in knowing -- begin
To know still new vastness of knowledge must be
Outside him -- to enter, to traverse, in fee

Have and hold! "Oh, Man's ignorance!" hear the fool whine!
How were it, for better or worse, didst thou grunt
Contented with sapience -- the lot of the swine
Who knows he was born for just truffles to hunt? --
Monks' Paradise -- "Semper sint res uti sunt!"

No, Man's the prerogative -- knowledge once gained --
To ignore, -- find new knowledge to press for, to swerve
In pursuit of, no, not for a moment: attained --
Why, onward through ignorance! Dare and deserve!
As still to its asymptote speedeth the curve,

So approximates Man -- Thee, who, reachable not,
Hast formed him to yearningly follow Thy whole
Sole and single omniscience!
Such, friends, is my lot:
I am back with the world: one more step to the goal
Thanks for reaching I render -- Fust's help to Man's soul!

Mere mechanical help? So the hand gives a toss
To the falcon, -- aloft once, spread pinions and fly,
Beat air far and wide, up and down and across!
My Press strains a-tremble: whose masterful eye
Will be first, in new regions, new truth to descry?

Give chase, soul! Be sure each new capture consigned
To my Types will go forth to the world, like God's bread
-- Miraculous food not for body but mind,
Truth's manna! How say you? Put case that, instead
Of old leasing and lies, we superiorly fed

These Heretics, Hussites ...
First Friend. First answer my query!
If saved, art thou happy?
Fust. I was and I am.
First Friend. Thy visage confirms it: how comes, then,
that -- weary
And woe-begone late -- was it show, was it sham? --
We found thee sunk thiswise?
Second Friend. -- In need of the dram

From the flask which a provident neighbor might carry!
Fust. Ah, friends, the fresh triumph soon flickers, fast fades!
I hailed Word's dispersion: could heartleaps but tarry!
Through me does Print furnish Truth wings?
The same aids
Cause Falsehood to range just as widely. What raids

On a region undreamed of does Printing enable
Truth's foe to effect! Printed leasing and lies
May speed to the world's farthest corner -- gross fable
No less than pure fact -- to impede, neutralize,
Abolish God's gift and Man's gain!
First Friend. Dost surmise

What struck me at first blush? Our Beghards, Waldenses,
Jeronimites, Hussites -- does one show his head,
Spout heresy now? Not a priest in his senses
Deigns answer mere speech, but piles fagots instead,
Refines as by fire, and, him silenced, all's said.

Whereas if in future I pen an opuscule
Defying retort, as of old when rash tongues
Were easy to tame, -- straight some knave of the Huss-School
Prints answer forsooth! Stop invisible lungs?
The barrel of blasphemy broached once, who bungs?

Second Friend. Does my sermon, next Easter, meet fitting
acceptance?
Each captious disputative boy has his quirk
"An cuique credendum sit?" Well, the Church kept "ans"
In order till Fust set his engine at work!
What trash will come flying from jew, Moor, and Turk

When, goosequill, thy reign o'er the world is abolished!
Goose -- ominous name! With a goose woe began:
Quoth Huss -- which means "goose" in his idiom unpolished --
"Ye burn now a Goose: there succeeds me a Swan
Ye shall find quench your fire!"
Fust. I foresee such a man.





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