The New York Tribune published in 1915 the following lines by Louis Untermeyer, which were subsequently included in his "—— and Other Poets."[352]
Gilbert K. Chesterton Rises to the Toast of Coffee
Strong wine it is a mocker; strong wine it is a beast.
It grips you when it starts to rise; it is the Fabled Yeast.
You should not offer ale or beer from hops that are freshly picked,
Nor even Benedictine to tempt a benedict.
For wine has a spell like the lure of hell, and the devil has mixed the brew;
And the friends of ale are a sort of pale and weary, witless crew—
And the taste of beer is a sort of a queer and undecided brown—
But, comrades, I give you coffee—drink it up, drink it down.
With a fol-de-rol-dol and a fol-de-rol-dee, etc.
Oh, cocoa's the drink for an elderly don who lives with an elderly niece;
And tea is the drink for studios and loud and violent peace—
And brandy's the drink that spoils the clothes when the bottle breaks in the trunk;
But coffee's the drink that is drunken by men who will never be drunk.
So, gentlemen, up with the festive cup, where Mocha and Java unite;
It clears the head when things are said too brilliant to be bright!
It keeps the stars from the golden bars and the lips of the tipsy town;
So, here's to strong, black coffee—drink it up, drink it down!
With a fol-de-rol-dol and a fol-de-rol-dee, etc.
The American breakfast cup is celebrated in up-to-date American style in the following by Helen Rowland in the New York Evening World:
What Every Wife Knows
Give me a man who drinks good, hot, dark, strong coffee for breakfast!
A man who smokes a good, dark, fat cigar after dinner!
You may marry your milk-faddist, or your anti-coffee crank, as you will!
But I know the magic of the coffee pot!
Let me make my Husband's coffee—and I care not who makes eyes at him!
Give me two matches a day—
One to start the coffee with, at breakfast, and one for his cigar, after dinner!
And I defy all the houris in Christendom to light a new flame in his heart!
Oh, sweet supernal coffee-pot!
Gentle panacea of domestic troubles,
Faithful author of that sweet nepenthe which deadens all the ills that married folks are heir to.
Cheery, glittering, soul-soothing, warmed hearted, inanimate friend!
What wife can fail to admit the peace and serenity she owes to you?
To you, who stand between her and all her early morning troubles—
Between her and the before-breakfast grouch—
Between her and the morning-after headache—
Between her and the cold-gray-dawn scrutiny?
To you, who supply the golden nectar that stimulates the jaded masculine soul,
Soothes the shaky masculine nerves, stirs the fagged masculine mind, inspires the slow masculine sentiment,
And starts the sluggish blood a-flowing and the whole day right!
What is it, I ask you, when he comes down to breakfast dry of mouth, and touchy of temper—
That gives him pause, and silences that scintillating barb of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue,
With which he meant to impale you?
It is the sweet aroma of the coffee-pot—the thrilling thought of that first delicious sip!
What is it, on the morning after the club dance,
That hides your weary, little, washed-out face and straggling, uncurled coiffure from his critical eyes?
It is the generous coffee-pot, standing like a guardian angel between you and him!
And in those many vital psychological moments, during the honeymoon, which decide for or against the romance and happiness of all the rest of married life—
Those critical before-breakfast moments when temperament meets temperament, and will meets "won't"—
What is it that halts you on the brink of tragedy,
And distracts you from the temptation to answer back?
It is the absorbing anxiety of watching the coffee boil!
What is it that warms his veins and soothes your nerves,
And turns all the world suddenly from a dismal gray vale of disappointment to a bright rosy garden of hope—
And starts another day gliding smoothly along like a new motor car?
What is it that will do more to transform a man from a fiend into an angel than baptism in the River Jordan?
It is the first cup of coffee in the morning!
Coffee in Dramatic Literature
Coffee was first "dramatized", so to speak, in England, where we read that Charles II and the Duke of Yorke attended the first performance of Tarugo's Wiles, or the Coffee House, a comedy, in 1667, which Samuel Pepys described as "the most ridiculous and insipid play I ever saw in my life." The author was Thomas St. Serf. The piece opens in a lively manner, with a request on the part of its fashionable hero for a change of clothes. Accordingly, Tarugo puts off his "vest, hat, perriwig, and sword," and serves the guests to coffee, while the apprentice acts his part as a gentleman customer. Presently other "customers of all trades and professions" come dropping into the coffee house. These are not always polite to the supposed coffee-man; one complains of his coffee being "nothing but warm water boyl'd with burnt beans," while another desires him to bring "chocolette that's prepar'd with water, for I hate that which is encouraged with eggs." The pedantry and nonsense uttered by a "schollar" character is, perhaps, an unfair specimen of coffee-house talk; it is especially to be noticed that none of the guests ventures upon the dangerous ground of politics.
In the end, the coffee-master grows tired of his clownish visitors, saying plainly, "This rudeness becomes a suburb tavern rather than my coffee house"; and with the assistance of his servants he "thrusts 'em all out of doors, after the schollars and customers pay."
In 1694, there was published Jean Baptiste Rosseau's comedy, Le Caffè, which appears to have been acted only once in Paris, although a later English dramatist says it met with great applause in the French capital. Le Caffè was written in Laurent's café, which was frequented by Fontenelle, Houdard de la Motte, Dauchet, the abbé Alary Boindin, and others. Voltaire said that "this work of a young man without any experience either of the world of letters or of the theater seems to herald a new genius."