The scuttle-bearing buttons, boon and blank
And grimy loads his evening load of coals,
Filled with respect for the cook's and butler's rank,
Lo, the round cook half fills the hot retreat,
Her kitchen, where the odours of the meat,
The cabbage and sweets all merge as in a pall,
The stale unsavoury remnants of the feast.
Here, with abounding confluences of onion,
Whose vastitudes of perfume tear the soul
In wish of the not unpotatoed stew,
They float and fade and flutter like morning dew.
And all the copper pots and pans in line,
A burnished army of bright utensils, shine;
And the stern butler heedless of his bunion
Looks happy, and the tabby-cat of the house
Forgets the elusive, but recurrent mouse
And purrs and dreams;
And in his corner the black-beetle seems
A plumed Black Prince arrayed in gleaming mail;
Whereat the shrinking scullery-maid grows pale,
And flies for succour to THOMAS of the calves,
Who, doing nought by halves,
Circles a gallant arm about her waist,
And takes unflinching the cheek-slap of the chaste
And giggling fair, nor counts his labour lost.
Then, beer, beer, beer.
Spume-headed, bitter, golden like the gold
Buried by cutlassed pirates tempest-tossed,
Red-capped, immitigable, over-bold
With blood and rapine, spreaders of fire and fear.