The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To * * * *, Esquire
TO * * * *, ESQUIRE.
ome, shut up your Blackstone, and sparkle again
The leader and light of our classical revels;
While statues and cases bewilder your brain,
No wonder you’re vexed and beset with blue devils:
But a change in your diet will banish the blues;
Then come, my old chum, to our banquet sublime;
Our wine shall be caught from the lips of the Muse,
And each plate and tureen shall be hallowed in rhyme.
Scott, from old Albin, shall furnish the dishes
With wild-fowl and ven’son that none can surpass;
And Mitchill, who sung the amours of the fishes,
Shall fetch his most exquisite tomcod and bass.
Leigh Hunt shall select, at his Hampstead Parnassus,
Fine greens, from the hot-bed, the table to cheer;
And Wordsworth shall bring us whole bowls of molasses
Diluted with water from sweet Windermere.
To rouse the dull fancy and give us an appetite,
Black wormwood bitters Lord Byron shall bear,
And Montgomery bring (to consumptives a happy sight)
Tepid soup-meagre and “l’eau capillaire;”
George Coleman shall sparkle in old bottled cider,
Roast-beef and potatoes friend Crabbe will supply;
Rogers shall hash us an “olla podrida,”
And the best of fresh “cabbage” from Paulding we’ll buy.
Mr. Tennant—free, fanciful, laughing, and lofty,
Shall pour out Tokay and Scotch whiskey like rain;
Southey shall sober our spirits with coffee,
And Horace in London “flash up in champagne.”
Tom Campbell shall cheer us with rosy Madeira,
Refined by long keeping, rich, sparkling, and pure;
And Moore, “pour chasse café,” to each one shall bear a
Sip-witching bumper of parfait amour.
Then come to our banquet—oh! how can you pause
A moment between merry rhyme and dull reason?
Preferring the wit-blighting “Spirit of Laws”
To the spirit of verse, is poetical treason!
Judge Phœbus will certainly issue his writ,
No quirk or evasion your cause can make good, man;
Only think what you’ll surfer, when sentenced to sit
And be kept broad awake till you’ve read the Backwoodsman!
D.