Classic Poem

My riddle's a joy in a world of despair;
A cousin, they say, of the merry March hare;
He flourishes most at five hundred degrees;
His cradle's a toast and his mother's a cheese;
A troublesome, bubblesome, sweet little beast,
His fragrant enough is as good as a feast
(For who that is mortal may grapple with two?)
When hot, he's ambrosia; when cold, he is glue.
He never had fur, feathers, features, nor scales.
The answer? Of course! 'Tis the Rabbit of Wales.

When Arthur ruled Britain with scepter and sword,
There came to the King at the festival board
A wizard unrivaled in magical spell,
Hight Morgan ap something in F-double-L.
" Bold knights and true maidens! " he said, " ye perceive
There's nothing concealed in the folds of my sleeve. "
Then, " Hey! presto! change! " From the helm of King Lot
He drew forth a Viand all smoking and hot.
" This Marvel, " quoth he, " 'mongst the chiefs of the dales
Of Rheidol, is known as the Rabbit of Wales. "

Then reveled those lordlings, and when it beseemed
They hied them to slumber. And, soothly, they dreamed
Of gryfons and dragons and gyaunts, and thynges,
And heathen enchaunters and Saracen kynges,
And boars that had tuishes full twenty rods long,
And jousts that were bloody and strokes that were strong,
Of which, when ye read (an it please ye to look)
Set down in the pages of Malory's book,
Remember, that they who recounted these tales
Had banqueted free on the Rabbit of Wales.

He lives through the ages, more soothing than silk,
As potent as porter, as gentle as milk.
Unblemished of youth, he has heightened disport
In hovel and palace, in tavern and court.
When Jonson and Herrick made feasts at the Sun,
The Boar and the Mermaid, of them he was one.
He frolicked with Shakespeare, with Chaucer and Gower;
He's older than Merlin and Owen Glendower;
They find in the primal Devonian shales
The fossil remains of the Rabbit of Wales.

When tables are snowy, and heavenward roll
The violet smoke wreaths that comfort the soul,
He comes! from the region of skillets and spits
Upborne on the platter of rubicund Fritz.
How blithely he bubbles! How sweetly he steams!
How mellow, how yellow, how tender he seems!
So mild is his temper, we'll give it a cross;
Then feed him with mustard and berry brown sauce,
And drink his repose in the primest of ales:
" Waes hael! to the rantipole Rabbit of Wales! "