How fair are Virtue's buds, where'er they blow,
Or in the desert wild or garden gay!
Her flowers how sacred, wheresoe'er they show,
Unknown to killing canker and decay!
FLED are the moments of delusive mirth,
The fancied pleasure, paradise divine!
Hush'd are the clamours that derive their birth
From generous floods of soul-reviving wine.
Still night and silence now succeed their noise;
The erring tides of passion rage no more;
But all is peaceful as the ocean's voice
When breezeless waters kiss the silent shore.
Here stood the juice, whose care-controlling powers
Could every human misery subdue,
And wake to sportive joy the lazy hours,
That to the languid senses hateful grew.
Attracted by the magic of the bowl,
Around the swelling brim in full array
The glasses circled, as the planets roll,
And hail with borrow'd light the god of day.
Here music, the delight of moments gay,
Bade the unguarded tongues their motions cease,
And with a mirthful, a melodious lay,
Awed the fell voice of discord into peace.
These are the joys that virtue must approve,
While reason shines with majesty divine,
Ere our ideas in disorder move,
And sad excess against the soul combine.
What evils have not frenzied mortals done
By wine, that ignis fatuus of the mind!
How many by its force to vice are won,
Since first ordain'd to tantalise mankind!
By Bacchus' power, ye sons of riot! say,
How many watchful sentinels have bled!
How many travellers have lost their way,
By lamps unguided through the evening shade!
O spare those friendly twinklers of the night!
Let no rude cane their hallow'd orbs assail!
For cowardice alone condemns the light
That shows her countenance aghast and pale.
Now the short taper warns me to depart,
Ere darkness shall assume his dreary sway;
Ere solitude fall heavy on my heart,
That lingers for the far approach of day.
Who would not vindicate the happy doom,
To be for ever number'd with the dead,
Rather than bear the miserable gloom,
When all his comforts, all his friends, are fled?
Bear me, ye gods! where I may calmly rest
From all the follies of the night secure,
The balmy blessings of repose to taste,
Nor hear the tongue of outrage at my door.
HEAR, O ye host of Epicurus! hear!
Each portly form, whose overhanging paunch
Can well denote the all-transcendant joy
That springs unbounded from fruition full
Of rich repast; to you I consecrate
The song advent'rous; happy if the Muse
Can cook the numbers to your palates keen,
Or send but half the relish with her song,
That smoking sirloins to your souls convey.
Hence now, ye starv'lings wan! whose empty sides Oft echo to the hollow-murmuring tones
Of hunger fell. Avaunt, ye base-born hinds!
Whose fates unkind ne'er destined you to gorge
The banquet rare, or wage a pleasing war
With the delicious morsels of the earth.
To you I sing not; for, alas! what pain,
What tantalising tortures would ensue,
To aid the force of famine's sharpest tooth,
Were I to breathe my accents in your ear!
Hail, roast beef! monarch of the festive throng,
To hunger's bane the strongest antidote;
Come, and with all thy rage-appeasing sweets
Our appetites allay! For, or attended
By root Hibernian, or plum-pudding rare,
Still thou art welcome to the social board.
Say, can the spicy gales from orient blown,
Or zephyr's wing, that from the orange groves
Brushes the breeze with rich perfumes replete,
More aromatic or reviving smell
To nostrils bring! Or can the glassy streams
Of Pactolus, that o'er his golden sands
Delightful glide, the luscious drops outvie
That from thy sides embrown'd unnumber'd fall!
Behold, at thy approach, what smiles serene
Beam from the ravish'd guests! Still are their
While they, with whetted instruments, prepare
For deep incision. Now the abscess bleeds,
And the devouring band, with stomachs keen,
And glutting rage, thy beauteous form destroy;
Leave you a marrowless skeleton and bare,
A prey to dunghills, or vexatious sport
Of torrent rushing from defilement's urns,
That o'er the city's flinty pavement hurls.
So fares it with the man whose powerful pelf Once could command respect. Caress'd by all, His bounties were as lavish as the hand
Of yellow Ceres till his stores decay'd;
And then (O dismal tale!) those precious drops
Of flattery that bedew'd his spring of fortune,
Leave the sad winter of his state so fallen,
Nor nurse the thorn from which they ne'er can hope Again to pluck the odour-dropping rose!
For thee, roast beef! in variegated shapes,
Have mortals toil'd. The sailor sternly braves
The strength of Boreas, and exulting stands
Upon the sea-wash'd deck. With hopes inspired
Of yet indulging in thy wish'd-for sweets,
He smiles amidst the dangers that surround him;
Cheerful he steers to cold, forbidden climes,
Or to the torrid zone explores his way.
Be kind, ye powers! and still propitious send
This paragon of feeding to our halls.
With this regaled, who would, vain-glorious, wish
For towering pyramids superbly crown'd
With jellies, syllabubs, or ice-cream rare?
These can amuse the eye, and may bestow
A short-lived pleasure to a palate strange;
But for a moment's pleasure, who would vend
A lifetime that would else be spent in joy,
For hateful loathings, and for gouty rheums,
Ever preceded by indulged excess?
Blest be those walls where hospitality
And welcome reign at large! There may you oft
Of social cheer partake, and love, and joy;
Pleasures that to human mind convey
Ideal pictures of the bliss supreme;
But near the gate where parsimony dwells,
Where ceremony cool, with brow austere,
Confronts the guests, ne'er let thy foot approach!
Deprived of thee, heaven-born benevolence,
What is life's garden but a devious wild,
Through which the traveller must pass forlorn,
Unguided by the aid of friendship's ray?
Rather, if poverty hold converse with thee,
To the lonely garret's lofty bield ascend,
Or dive to some sad cell; there have recourse
To meagre offals, where, though small thy fare,
Freedom shall wing thee to a purer joy
Than banquets with superfluous dainties crown'd,
Mix'd with reserve and coolness, can afford.
But if your better fortunes have prepared
Your purse with ducats, and with health your frame,
Assemble, friends! and to the tavern straight,
Where the officious drawer, bending low,
Is passive to a fault. Then, nor the Signior grand,
Or Russia's empress, signalised for war,
Can govern with more arbitrary sway.
Ye who, for health, for exercise, for air,
Oft saunter from Edina's smoke-capt spires,
And by the grassy hill or dimpled brook,
An appetite revive, should oft-times stray
O'er Arthur's-seat's green pastures, to the town
For sheep-heads and bone-bridges famed of yore,
That in our country's annals stands yclept
Fair Duddingstonia, where you may be blest
With simple fare and vegetable sweets,
Freed from the clamours of the busy world.*
Or, if for recreation you should stray
To Leithian shore, and breathe the keener air
Wafted from Neptune's empire of the main;
If appetite invite, and cash prevail,
Ply not your joints upon the homeward track,
Till Lawson, chiefest of the Scottish hosts!†
*The village of Duddingstone, near Edinburgh, was famed for taverns in which sheep-head dinners could be got. The crania of the sheep being afterwards placed as stepping-stones across pools in the street, the place was quizically spoken of as a great city possessing a hundred bone bridges.-Robert Chambers.
+ Lawson's tavern was in a large old house (dated 1678), on the Shore at Leith, very near the flag-house at the end of the pier. It has long been a private dwelling. Chancing to be in this house a good many years ago, the writer of this note observed on a window, scribbled by a diamond, the complaint of some dissatisfied customer, who had perhaps dined in it the most part of a century ago—"Lawson's is a good house, but bad waiters."-Robert Chambers.
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