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 glass's edge when dinner's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time-- 'Tis 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 sceptical at times-- How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!" _Che ch'è_, 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. Could anything be more easy, conversational, realistic? And yet every now and then we find throughout the poem touches of the noblest poetry introduced so skilfully that there is no sense of incongruity. For example, the Bishop in the course of his argument says that absolute unbelief is just as impossible as absolute faith.