Bishop Blougram's Apology by Robert Browning

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. / A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith! / We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. / It's different, preaching in basilicas, / And doing duty in some masterpiece / Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart! / I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, / Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere; / It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh? / These hot long ceremonies of our church / Cost us a little -- oh, they pay the price, / You take me -- amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. / No deprecation, -- nay, I beg you, sir! / Beside 'tis our engagement: don't you know, / I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out, / We'd see truth dawn together? -- truth that peeps / Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done, / And body gets its sop and holds its noise / And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time: / Truth's break of day! You do despise me then. / And if I say, "despise me," -- never fear! / I know you do not in a certain sense -- / Not in my arm-chair, for example: here, / I well imagine you respect my place / (_Status_, _entourage_, worldly circumstance) / Quite to its value -- very much indeed: / -- Are up to the protesting eyes of you / In pride at being seated here for once -- / You'll turn it to such capital account! / When somebody, through years and years to come, / Hints of the bishop, -- names me -- that's enough: / "Blougram? I knew him" -- (into it you slide) / "Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day, / All alone, we two; he's a clever man: / And after dinner, -- why, the wine you know, -- / Oh, there was wine, and good! -- what with the wine... / 'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk! / He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen / Something of mine he relished, some review: / He's quite above their humbug in his heart, / Half-said as much, indeed -- the thing's his trade. / I warrant, Blougram's skeptical at times: / How otherwise? I liked him, I confess! " / _Che che_, my dear sir, as we say at Rome, / Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take; / You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths: / The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.