But when she asked him 'Wherefore so?'
He felt his very whiskers glow,
And frankly owned 'I do not know.'
While, like broad waves of golden grain.
Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,
His colour came and went again.
Pitying his obvious distress,
Yet with a tinge of bitterness,
She said 'The More exceeds the Less.'
'A truth of such undoubted weight,