The Hasty-Pudding
by Joel Barlow
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Canto One
1 Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise,
2 To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;
3 Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurl'd,
4 Bear death to kings and freedom to the world,
5 I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,
6 A virgin theme, unconscious of the muse,
7 But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
8 The purest frenzy of poetic fire.
9 Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd,
10 Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;
11 Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing
12 Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring;
13 Or on some distant fair your notes employ,
14 And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.
15 I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
16 My morning incense, and my evening meal,
17 The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,
18 Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
19 The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
20 Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
21 Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
22 And save the pains of blowing while I eat.
23 Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song
24 Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
25 Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
26 And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
27 No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
28 Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame;
29 But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear,
30 All bards should catch it, and all realms revere!
31 Assist me first with pious toil to trace
32 Through wrecks of time thy lineage and thy race;
33 Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore
34 (Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore),
35 First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
36 Have lived indeed, but lived without a name
37 Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,
38 First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize,
39 Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,
40 In boiling water stir the yellow flour:
41 The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste,
42 Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,
43 Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
44 Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;
45 The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,
46 And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
47 Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,
48 Rise, like her labours, to the son of song,
49 To her, to them, I'd consecrate my lays,
50 And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.
51 Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone
52 The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known,
53 But o'er the world's wide clime should live secure,
54 Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.
55 Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy
56 Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy!
57 Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam,
58 Each clime my country, and each house my home,
59 My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,
60 I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.
61 For thee through Paris, that corrupted town,
62 How long in vain I wandered up and down,
63 Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard
64 Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.
65 London is lost in smoke and steep'd in tea;
66 No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee;
67 The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
68 Would call a proclamation from the crown.
69 For climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays,
70 Chill'd in their fogs, exclude the generous maize:
71 A grain whose rich, luxuriant growth requires
72 Short gentle showers, and bright ethereal fires.
73 But here, though distant from our native shore,
74 With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more.
75 The same! I know thee by that yellow face,
76 That strong complexion of true Indian race,
77 Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
78 Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air;
79 For endless years, through every mild domain,
80 Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign.
81 But man, more fickle, the bold license claims,
82 In different realms to give thee different names.
83 Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant
84 Polanta call; the French, of course, Polante.
85 E'en in thy native regions, how I blush
86 To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush!
87 On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn
88 Insult and eat thee by the name of Suppawn.
89 All spurious appellations, void of truth;
90 I've better known thee from my earliest youth,
91 Thy name is Hasty Pudding! thus our sires
92 Were won't to greet thee fuming from their fires;
93 And while they argued in thy just defence
94 With logic clear, they thus explained the sense:
95 "In haste the boiling caldron, o'er the blaze,
96 Receives and cooks the ready powder'd-maize;
97 In haste 'tis served, and then in equal haste,
98 With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.
99 No carving to be done, no knive to grate
100 The tender ear and wound the stony plate;
101 But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,
102 And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,
103 By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored,
104 Performs the hasty honours of the board."
105 Such is thy name, significant and clear,
106 A name, a sound to every Yankee dear,
107 But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste
108 Preserve my pure hereditary taste.
109 There are who strive to stamp with disrepute
110 The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;
111 In tropes of high-strain'd wit, while gaudy prigs
112 Compare thy nursling man to pamper'd pigs;
113 With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
114 Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.
115 What though the generous cow gives me to quaff
116 The milk nutritious; am I then a calf?
117 Or can the genius of the noisy swine,
118 Though nursed on pudding, thence lay claim to mine?
119 Sure the sweet song I fashion to thy praise,
120 Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.
121 My song resounding in its grateful glee,
122 No merit claims: I praise myself in thee.
123 My father loved thee through his length of days!
124 For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize;
125 From thee what health, what vigour he possess'd,
126 Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest;
127 Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,
128 And all my bones were made of Indian corn.
129 Delicious grain! whatever form it take,
130 To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,
131 In every dish 'tis welcome still to me,
132 But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.
133 Let the green succotash with thee contend,
134 Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend,
135 Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,
136 And a long slice of bacon grace their side;
137 Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be,
138 Can please my palate like a bowl of thee.
139 Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia's pride,
140 Rich Johnny-Cake this mouth hath often tried;
141 Both please me well, their virtues much the same,
142 Alike their fabric, as allied their fame,
143 Except in dear New-England, where the last
144 Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste,
145 To give it sweetness and improve the taste.
146 But place them all before me, smoking hot,
147 The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot;
148 The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast,
149 With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast;
150 The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides
151 A belly soft the pulpy apple hides;
152 The yellow bread, whose face like amber glows,
153 And all of Indian that the bakepan knows,
154 You tempt me not; my fav'rite greets my eyes,
155 To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies.