A PINDARIC ODE
|
1 |
Gooseberry-Pie is best. |
Full of the theme, O Muse, begin the
song! |
What though the sunbeams of the West |
Mature within the Turtle’s breast |
Blood glutinous and fat of verdant hue? |
What though the Deer bound sportively
along |
O’er springey turf, the Park’s elastic
vest? |
Give them their honours due, . . |
But Gooseberry-Pie is best.
|
2 |
Behind his oxen slow |
The patient Ploughman plods, |
And as the Sower followed by the clods |
Earth’s genial womb received the living
seed. |
The rains descend, the grains they
grow; |
Saw ye the vegetable ocean |
Roll its green ripple to the April
gale? |
The golden waves with multitudinous
motion |
Swell o’er the summer vale?
|
3 |
It flows through Alder banks along |
Beneath the copse that hides the hill; |
The gentle stream you cannot see, |
You only hear its melody, |
The stream that turns the Mill. |
Pass on a little way, pass on, |
And you shall catch its gleam anon; |
And hark! the loud and agonizing groan
|
That makes its anguish known, |
Where tortured by the Tyrant Lord of
Meal |
The Brook is broken on the Wheel!
|
4 |
Blow fair, blow fair, thou orient gale! |
On the white bosom of the sail |
Ye Winds enamour’d lingering lie! |
Ye Waves of ocean spare the bark, |
Ye Tempests of the sky! |
From distant realms she comes to bring |
The sugar for my Pie. |
For this on Gambia’s arid side |
The Vulture’s feet are scaled with
blood, |
And Beelzebub beholds with pride, |
His darling planter brood.
|
5 |
First in the spring thy leaves were
seen, |
Thou beauteous bush, so early green! |
Soon ceased thy blossoms’ little life
of love. |
O safer than the gold-fruit-bearing
tree |
The glory of that old Hesperian grove,
. . |
No Dragon does there need for thee |
With quintessential sting to work
alarms, |
Prepotent guardian of thy fruitage
fine, |
Thou vegetable Porcupine! . . . |
And didst thou scratch thy tender arms, |
O Jane! That I should dine!
|
6 |
The flour, the sugar, and the fruit, |
Commingled well, how well they suit, |
And they were well bestow’d. |
O Jane, with truth I praise your Pie |
And will not you in just reply |
Praise my Pindaric Ode? |
Exeter, 1799.
|
Robert
Southey |
Classic Poems |
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[ The Battle of Bleinheim ] [ Gooseberry-Pie ] [ The Old Man's Comforts ] [ The Ebb Tide ] [ The Inchcape Rock ] |