That was a certain bishop's villa-gate,
I knew it by the eagles,—and at once
Remember this same bishop was just he
People of old were wont to bid me please
If I would catch preferment: so, I smiled
Because an impulse came to me, a whim—
What if I prayed the prelate leave to speak,
Began upon him in his presence-hall
—'What, still at work so gray and obsolete?
Still rocheted and mitred more or less?