TO MY TEA-POT.

For the Table Book.

My Tea-pot! while thy lips pour forth
For me a stream of matchless worth,
I’ll pour forth my rhymes for thee:
Don Juan’s verse is gross, they say;
But I will pen a grocer lay,
Commencing—“Amo tea.”

Yes—let Anacreon’s votary sip
His flowing bowl with feverish lip,
And breathe abominations;
Some day he’ll be bowl’d out for it—
He’s brewing mischief, while I sit
And brew my Tea-pot-ations.

After fatigue, how dear to me
The maid who suits me to a T,
And makes the water bubble.
From her red hand when I receive
The evergreen, I seem to give
At T. L. no trouble.

I scorn the hop, disdain the malt,
I hate solutions sweet and salt,
Injurious I vote ’em;
For tea my faithful palate yearns;
Thus—though my fancy never turns,
It always is tea-totum!

Yet some assure me whilst I sip,
That thou hast stain’d thy silver lip
With sad adulterations—
Slow poison drawn from leaves of sloe,
That quickly cause the quick to go,
And join their dead relations.

Aunt Malaprop now drinks noyeau
Instead of Tea, and well I know
That she prefers it greatly:
She says, “Alas! I give up Tea,
There’s been so much adultery
Among the grocers lately!”

She warns me of Tea-dealers’ tricks—
Those double-dealing men, who mix
Unwholesome drugs with some Tea
’Tis bad to sip—and yet to give
Up sipping’s worse; we cannot live
“Nec sine Tea, nec cum Tea.”

Yet still, tenacious of my Tea,
I think the grocers send it me
Quite pure, (’tis what they call so.)
Heedless of warnings, still I get
“Tea veniente die, et
Tea decedente,” also.

Sam Sam’s Son.