Made at the ‘ Cock.’
Alfred, headwaiter at the ‘ Cock ‘
* Where nowadays I dine,
Go fetch me it is eight o’clock
My usual glass of wine ;
I’ll sing, as sang in happier days
The Laureate prosit omen !
Who gave your predecessor praise,
And left you his precnomen.
For who but you has power to charm
The heart that’s out of tune,
And antiquarian minds disarm
Of yearnings for the moon?
While Hygieia plies her craft,
And doctors are despotic,
While men but sip where once they quaffed
And own themselves neurotic ;
While yet we read in history
Of those ‘ two-bottle ‘ names,
And marvel not, but merely sigh
For our enfeebled frames :
Perchance the air my ancestors
Inhaled, was antiseptic ;
Perchance a life spent out of doors
Maintained them more eupeptic.
I drink your health in fellowship,
Will Waterproof, my Will ;
Like you I love to sit and sip
My after-dinner gill ;
Methinks we are of kindred sort,
Full-blooded, shrewd, and youthful,
Yet, where you took your pint of port,
I take a modest toothful.
Reason enough I hear your scorn
Why these half-hearted lines
Boast little of the vigour born
Of more heroic vines :
Besides, I plead this vintage apes
The liquor loved of Spaniards
Smacks less of true Oporto grapes
Than South Australian tanyards.
I wail an age degenerate :
‘Tis truth the poet sings,
The glories of our blood and state
Are not substantial things’;
The Muse has drunk herself to death,
And Moschus has his Bion,
And dead is Queen Elizabeth,
And dead is King Pandion.
O souls of poets dead and gone !
Saint Dunstan’s by the Fleet
From you a passing splendour won
‘Twas just across the street ;
The choruses that there you sang
Are echoes now and hollow ;
We can but guess how loudly rang
The rafters in the Apollo ;
Where Jonson held high revelry
And learnt from sack his art,
Where, maybe, with good ale for key,
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Ah, how you crowned your cups of yore
And toasted gallant lasses,
While shuffling on the sanded floor
Sim Wadlowe filled your glasses!
Alfred I murmur, but he hears
Above the clash of plates
Go fetch the coffee-cup that cheers
But not intoxicates :
A touch, a flame, the charm is snapt,
The hour of hours is pending,
And nomad Fancy straight is rapt
To watch the clouds ascending.
This bean has travelled many a mile;
‘Twas grown by Cingalese
In lands where only man is vile
And all the prospects please.
This cigarette was rolled perchance
Beside the Euxine coast-ring,
And still is fragrant of romance,
Harim, and sack, and bowstring.
Alas ! but coffee only serves
As Bacchus’ antidote ;
My Lady Nicotine unnerves
The poet’s liquid throat ;
Supposing Doctor Middleton
Had lit a Larranaga,
The vine had lost a champion,
And Port her noblest saga.
So, Alfred, take away the cup,
Put out the cigarette ;
While Fancy, ere I give her up,
Shows one more vision yet ;
For when I tread the asphodel,
Alfred, I think your spectre
Will dance attendance there as well
And pour for me the nectar.
When I am old and full of sleep,
And wine is no more red,
Into my narrow grave I’ll creep
And let no more be said ;
For other men this wine shall flow
And make them maudlin-clever,
For they shall come, and they shall go,
And you will wait for ever?
Another Alfred may arise
And to remoter time
Dispense like hospitalities
With manners as sublime :
Your fame shall stand, as stands an oak
More honoured in the gnarling,
And men shall eat and drink and smoke
And think of England’s Darling.
The time will come, and that ere long,
As cooler grows my blood,
When swanlike I shall end my song
And gently take the flood ;
But now, to celebrate the strife,
I’ll carve on Fancy’s trophy
One clouded hour of vinous life
Is worth an age of coffee.
I thank you for that glass of wine,
And bless the hand that gave ;
It filled me with a fire divine,
And made me Fancy’s slave ;
God- grant I feel this same good-will
To all men, when I slip hence :
So, Alfred, if you please, my bill,
And here’s your usual threepence.
(Frank Sidgwick)
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