(Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) -
And not at once invent that mild, luxurious,
And artful beverage, Beer. How the digestion
Got on without it, is a startling question.

Had they digestions? and an actual body
Such as dyspepsia might make attacks on?
Were they abstract ideas--(like Tom Noddy
And Mr. Briggs)--or men, like Jones and Jackson?
Then Nectar--was that beer, or whiskey-toddy?
Some say the Gaelic mixture, _I_ the Saxon:
I think a strict adherence to the latter
Might make some Scots less pigheaded, and fatter.

Besides, Bon Gaultier definitely shews
That the real beverage for feasting gods on
Is a soft compound, grateful to the nose
And also to the palate, known as 'Hodgson.'
I know a man--a tailor's son--who rose
To be a peer: and this I would lay odds on,
(Though in his Memoirs it may not appear,)
That that man owed his rise to copious Beer.

O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass!
Names that should be on every infant's tongue!
Shall days and months and years and centuries pass,
And still your merits be unrecked, unsung?
Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass,
And wished that lyre could yet again be strung
Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her