An Elegiac Ode

Queen of the palate! Universal Sweet! Gastronomy’s delectable Gioconda! Since with submission loyally I greet And follow out the regimen of RHONDDA, I cannot be considered indiscreet If I essay, but never go beyond, a Brief elegiac tribute to a sway By sterner needs now largely swept away.

Thy candy soothes the infant in its pram; Thou addest mellowness to old brown sherry; Thou glorifiest marmalade, on Cam And Isis making breakfast-tables merry; Thou lendest magic to the meanest jam Compounded of the most insipid berry; And canst convert the sourest crabs and quinces To jellies fit for epicures and princes.

Thou charmest unalloyed, in loaf or lumps Or crystals; brown and moist, or white and pounded; I never was so deeply in the dumps That, once thy fount of sweetness I had sounded, Courage returned not; even with the mumps I still could view with gratitude unbounded The navigators of heroic Spain Who found the New World—and the sugar-cane.

Sprinkled on buttered bread thou dost excite In human boys insatiable cravings; On Turkish (I regret to say) Delight Thou lurest them to dissipate their savings, Instead of banking them, or sitting tight, Or buying useful books and good engravings; And lastly, mixed with strawberries and cream, Thou art more than a dish, thou art a dream.

Before necessity, that knows no ruth, Ordained thy frugal use in tea and coffee, Some Stoics banned thee—men who in their youth Showed an unnatural dislike of toffee; For sweetness charms the normal human tooth, Sweetness inspires the singer’s tenderest strophe, Since old LUCRETIUS musically chid The curse of life—amari aliquid.

Eau sucrée, I admit, is rather tame Compared with beer or whisky blent with soda; But gallant Frenchmen, experts at this game, Commend it highly either as a coda Or prelude to their meals, and much the same Is sherbet, which the Gaekwar of Baroda And other Oriental satraps quaff In preference to ale or half-and-half.

Nor must I fail, O potent saccharin! Thou chemic offspring of by-products coaly, Late corner on the culinary scene, To hail thy aid, although it may be lowly Even compared with beet; for thou hast been Employed in sweetening my roly-poly— Thou whom I once regarded as a dose And now the active rival of glucose!

But still I hear some jaundiced critic say, Some rigid self-appointed censor morum, “Why harp upon the pleasures of a day When freely sweetened was each cup and jorum, Ere stern controllers had begun to stay The genial outflow of the fons leporum? Now sugar’s scarce, and we must do without it, Why let regretful fancy play about it?”

True, yet it greatly goes against the grain, Unless one has the patience of Ulysses, Wholly and resolutely to refrain From dwelling on the memory of past blisses; Forbidden fruits allure the strong and sane; Joys loved but lost are what one chiefly misses; This is my best excuse if I deplore “So sad, so sweet, the days that are no more.”