Page:The Hasty-Pudding.djvu/14

But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste
Preserve my pure hereditary taste.

There are who strive to stamp with disrepute
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;
In tropes of high-strain’d wit, while gaudy prigs
Compare thy nursling man to pamper’d pigs;
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.
What tho’ the gen’rous cow gives me to quaff
The milk nutritious; am I then a calf?
Or can the genius of the noisy swine,
Tho’ nursed on pudding, thence lay claim to mine?
Sure the sweet song, I fashion to thy praise,
Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.

My song resounding in its grateful glee,
No merit claims; I praise myself in thee.
My father lov’d thee thro’ his length of days!
For thee his fields were shaded o’er with maize;
From thee what health, what vigour he possess’d,
Ten sturdy freemen from him attest;
Thy constellation rul’d my natal morn,
And all my bones were made of Indian corn.
Delicious grain! whatever form it take,
To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,
In every dish ’tis welcome still to me,
But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.

Let the green succotash with thee contend,
Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend,
Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,
And a long slice of bacon grace their side;
Not all the plate, how fam’d soe’er it be,
Can please my palate like a bowl of thee.

Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia’s pride,
Rich Johnny-cake this mouth has often try’d;
Both please me well, their virtues much the same;
Alike their fabric, as allied their fame,
Except in dear New England, where the last
Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste,
To give it sweetness and improve the taste.
But place them all before me, smoking hot,
The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot;