TO A VEGETABLE-MARROW.
O monstrous, O Gargantuan, overgrown!
O huge! O gross! O squat!
Whose one redeeming virtue—one alone—
Is that you weigh a lot;
Who will not thrive upon the common soil,
So that the patient digger e'en must toil
To raise a special mound
Above the level ground
That you may sun yourself upon the sloping earth
And, like the wicked, wax to an uncommon girth.
But it is not your vast circumference
That stirs this passing strain;
I would not sing although, to move you hence,
They fetched their biggest crane;
It is that men should shovel tons of that
Into the maws of some capacious vat,
Add sugar (half-a-pound)
And stir it round and round;
Then, at the last, throw in some ginger with a spade
And label the result as "Lemon Marmalade."
From a description of the first flight of R 33:—
"Alas, the meteorological conditions, at first considered probable, turned out worse."—Yorkshire Paper.
Nothing so likely as the improbable.
