GOLDEN MEMORIES
When Memory with its scorn of ages,
Its predilection for the past,
Turns back about a billion pages
And lands us by the Cam at last;
Is it the thought of "Granta" (once our daughter),
The Freshers' Match, the Second in our Mays
That makes our mouth, our very soul to water?
Ah no! Ah no! It is the Salmon Mayonnaise!
The work we did was rarely reckoned
Worthy a tutor's kindly word—
(For when I said we got a Second
I really meant we got a Third)—
The games we played were often tinged with bitter,
Amidst the damns no faintest hint of praise
Greeted us when we missed the authentic "sitter"—
But thou wert always kind, O Salmon Mayonnaise!
Even our nights with "Granta," even
The style that, week by blessed week,
Mixed Calverley and J.K. Stephen
With much that was (I hold) unique,
Even our parodies of the Rubáiyát
Were disappointing—yes, in certain ways:
What genius loves (I mean) the people shy at—
Yet no one ever shied at Salmon Mayonnaise!
Alas! no restaurant in London
Can make us feel that thrill again;
Though what they do or what leave undone
I often ask, and ask in vain.
Is it the sauce which puts the brand of Cam on
Each maddening dish? The egg? The yellow
glaze?
The cucumber? The special breed of salmon?—
I only know we loved, we loved that Mayonnaise!
* * * * *
"Did Beauty," some may ask severely,
"Visit him in no other guise?
It cannot be that salmon merely
Should bring the mist before his eyes!
What of the river there where Byron's Pool lay,
The warm blue morning shimmering in the
haze?"
Not this (I say) … Yet something else …
Creme Brûlée!
Ye gods! to think of that and Salmon Mayonnaise!