Classic Poem

DEAR Field , my old friend, who love strait-forward verse,
And will take it, like marriage, for better, for worse,—
Who cheered my fire-side, when we grew up together,
And still warm my heart in these times and this weather;
I know you'll be glad to see, under my hand,
That I'm still, as the phrase is, alive in the land,
When you hear, that since meeting the bright-eyed and witty,
I've been asked to an absolute feast in the city!
Yes, Barron, no more of the Nelsons and Jervises:
— Dinner 's the place for the hottest of services;
— There 's the array, and the ardour to win,
The clashing, and splashing, and crashing, and din;
With fierce intercepting of convoys of butter,
And phrases and outcries tremendous to utter,—
Blood, devils, and drum-sticks,—now cut it—the jowl there—
Brains, bones, head and shoulders, and into the sole there!
The veterans too, round you—how obviously brave!
What wounds and what swellings they bear to their grave!
Some red as a fever, some pallid as death,
Some ballustrade-legged, others panting for breath,
Some jaundiced, some jaded, some almost a jelly,
And numbers with horrid contusion of belly

No wonder the wise look on dinners like these,
As so much sheer warfare with pain and disease.
Indeed, you may see by the gestures and grins
Which some dishes make, how they wait for one's sins;—
The gape of a cod-fish, and round staring eye,
The claws that threat up from a fierce pigeon pye,—
Don't they warn us, with signs at which heroes might shiver,
Of wounds in the midriff, and scars in the liver?
Even hares become bold in so desperate a case,
And with hollow defiance look full in one's face.

This made, t'other day, a physician declare,
That disease, bona fide, was part of our fare.
For example, he held that a plate of green fruit
Was not only substance, but colic to boót;
That veal, besides making an exquisite dish,
Was a fine indigestion, and so was salt fish;
That a tongue was most truly a thing to provoke,
Hasty-pudding slow poison, and trifle no joke.
Had you asked him accordingly, what was the fare,
When he dined t'other day with the vicar or may'r,
He'd have said, ‘Oh, of course, every thing of the best,
Gout, head-ache, and fever, and pain in the chest'
'Twas thus too at table, when helping the meat,
He'd have had you encourage the people to eat,—
As ‘Pray, Sir, allow me,—a slice of this gout;
I could get no St. Anthony's fire—it's quite out.
Mr. P. there,—more nightmare? my hand's quite at leisure?
A glass of slow fever? I'm sure with great pleasure.
My dear Mrs. H., why your plate's always empty!
Now can't a small piece of this agony tempt ye?’
And then leaning over, with spoon and with smile,
‘Do let me, Miss Betsy,—a little more bile?—
Have I no more persuasion with you too, Miss Virtue?
A little, I'm sure, of this cough couldn't hurt you.’

Now all this is good, and didactic enough
For those who'd make bodies mere cushions to stuff:
Excess is bad always;—but there's a relation
Of this same Excess, sometimes called Moderation,
Who wonders, and smiles, and concludes you a glutton,
If helped more than he is to turnips and mutton,—
A Southey in soups, who though changing his whim,
Would still have your living take pattern by him,—
In short, a Procrustes, who'd measure one's dishes,
As t'other did beds, to his own size or wishes.

Alas, we might ask every person we meet
To talk just as we do, as well as to eat,—
Enjoin the same rest to the brisk and tired out,
One repair to all tenements, shattered or stout,
One pay for all earnings, contents for all cases,
Nay, quarrel with people for difference of faces,
And turning beside us, with angry surprise,
Say, ‘Why an't you like me, Sir,—nose, mouth, and eyes?’

Each his ways, each his wants; and then taking our food,
'Tis exercise turns it to glad-flowing blood.
We must shun, it is true, what we find doesn't suit
With our special digestions,—wine, water, or fruit;
But from all kinds of action one thing we may learn,—
That nature'll indulge us, provided we earn
We study her fields, and find ‘books in the brooks’;
We range them, ride, walk, and come safe from the cooks

Thus I look upon shoes whitened thickly with dust,
As entitling the bearer to double pye-crust;
A mere turnpike ticket's a passport to lamb;
But a row up the Thames lands you safely at ham.

But here I must finish, or else I shall run
Through a world of blithe wisdom, and never have done.
And now, after all, why this subject to you,
To whom I am bidding a long, long adieu?
Why, because not content with two dinners, you see,
To take my leave of you, I needs must have three;
And so have insidiously got you to be a
True guest of a poet, and dine in idea.

So here, in your old friend the Barmecide's glass,
Is to you, dear Field, and your new-married lass.
May a breath from blue heaven your vessel attend,
As true to the last, as you've been to your friend;
And may all meet again to grow young in our joys,
And you and I, Barron, be happy old boys.