To a monk polemicist

(The Bitter Potion--Adriaen Brouwer c 1637)

For a moment, if you please, I beg you stop I have heard your screeching and felt your blows Let me say, let me grant you, what you want above all Let me say for the argument that you are right.

Let me say that you know better, that you have found in full What the Fathers teach about every matter small I will grant it you, and you can rest, the man correct And me, a fool who does not know.

Now off, leave me be, I have given you the day Every point I concede, I have no time to rage For even if it were for a mere second and no more I would rather have loved God once than been as right as you.