SALAD.
(SWINBURNE)
Brow.
O cool in the summer is salad,
And warm in the winter is love;
And a poet shall sing you a ballad
Delicious thereon and thereof.
A singer am I, if no sinner,
My Muse has a marvellous wing,
And I willingly worship at dinner
The Sirens of Spring.
Take endive... like love it is bitter;
Take beet... for like love it is red;
Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter,
And cress from the rivulet's bed;
Anchovies foam-born, like the Lady
Whose beauty has maddened this bard;
And olives, from groves that are shady;
And eggs—boil 'em hard.
(R. BROWNING)
Beard.
Waitress, with eyes so marvellous black,
And the blackest possible lustrous gay tress,
This is the month of the Zodiac
When I want a pretty deft-handed waitress.
Bring a china-bowl, you merry young soul;
Bring anything green, from worsted to celery;
Bring pure olive-oil, from Italy's soil...
Then your china-bowl we'll well array.
When the time arrives chip choicest chives,
And administer quietly chili and capsicum...
(Young girls do not quite know what 's what
Till as a Poet into their laps I come).
Then a lobster fresh as fresh can be
(When it screams in the pot I feel a murderer);
After which I fancy we
Shall want a few bottles of Heidsieck or Roederer.
(TENNYSON)
Hair.
King Arthur, growing very tired indeed
Of wild Tintagel, now that Lancelot
Had gone to Jersey or to Jericho,
And there was nobody to make a rhyme,
And Cornish girls were christened Jennifer,
And the Round Table had grown rickety,
Said unto Merlin (who had been asleep
For a few centuries in Broceliande,
But woke, and had a bath, and felt refreshed):
'What shall I do to pull myself together?'
Quoth Merlin, 'Salad is the very thing,
And you can get it at the "Cheshire Cheese."'
King Arthur went there: verily, I believe
That he has dined there every day since then.
Have you not marked the portly gentleman
In his cool corner, with his plate of greens?
The great knight Lancelot prefers the 'Cock,'
Where port is excellent (in pints), and waiters
Are portlier than kings, and steaks are tender,
And poets have been known to meditate...
Ox-fed orating ominous octastichs.