HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM

THE BEQUEST OF

EVERT JANSEN WENDE!'

1318

YE Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise, To cramp the day and hide me from the skies; Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their hights unfurl'd, Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world,--I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd, Who hurl'd your thunders round the epic field; Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring; Or on some distant fair your notes employ, And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. I sing the sweets I know,-the charms I feel,My morning incense, and my evening meal,The sweets of HASTY-PUDDING! Come, dear bowl, Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul. The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,

Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy akward unpoetic name
Should shun the Muse, or prejudice thy fame;
But rising grateful to the accustomed ear,
All Bards should catch it, and all realms revere !
Assist me first with pious toil to trace

Thro' wrecks of time thy lineage and thy race;
Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore,
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,)
First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learned with stones to crack the well dried maize,
Thro' the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,
In boiling water stir the yellow flour:

The yellow flour, bestrewed and stirred with haste,
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim:
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,
And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,
Rise like her labors, to the sons of song,
To her, to them, I'd consecrate my lays,

And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.
If 't was Oella, whom I sang before,

I here ascribe her one great virtue more.

Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone

The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known,

HASTY-PUDDING.

But o'er the world's wide climes should live secure, Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.

3

Dear Hasty-Pudding! what unpromised joy Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy ! Doomed o'er the world through devious paths to roam, Each clime my country, and each house my home, My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end, I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town, How long in vain I wandered up and down, Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard Cold from his cave usurps the morning board. London is lost in smoke and steeped in tea; No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee ; The uncouth word, a libel on the town, Would call a proclamation from the crown.* For climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays, Chilled in their fogs, exclude the generous maize; A grain, whose rich luxuriant growth requires Short gentle showers, and bright etherial fires.

But here though distant from our native shore, With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more, The same! I know thee by that yellow face, That strong complexion of true Indian race, Which time can never change, nor soil impair, Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air; For endless years, through every mild domain, Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign. But man, more fickle, the bold license claims, In different realms to give thee different names. Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant

* A certain king, at the time when this was written, was publishing proclamations to prevent American principles from being propagated in his country..