Classic Poem

After dreaming some hours of the land of Cocaigne,
That Elysium of all that is friand and nice,
Where for hail they have bon-bons , and claret for rain,
And the skaters in winter show off on cream -ice;
Where so ready all nature its cookery yields,
Macaroni au parmesan grows in the fields:
Little birds fly about with the true pheasant taint,
And the geese are all born with a liver complaint!
I rise — put on neck-cloth — stiff, tight, as can be —
For a lad who goes into the world . Dick . like me,
Should have his neck tied up, you know — there's no doubt of it —
Almost as tight as some lads who go out of it .
With whiskers well oiled, and with boots that " hold up
" The mirror to nature " — so bright you could sup
Off the leather like china; with coat, too, that draws
On the tailor, who suffers, a martyr's applause! —
With head bridled up, like a four-in-hand leader,
And stays — devil 's in them — too tight for a feeder,
I strut to the old Cafe Hardy, which yet
Beats the field at a dejeuner a la fourchette .
There, Dick , what a breakfast! — oh! not like your ghost
Of a breakfast in England, your curst tea and toast;
But a side-board, you dog, where one's eye roves about,
Like a turk's in the Haram, and thence singles out
One's pâte of larks, just to tune up the throat,
One's small limbs of chickens, done en papillote .
One's erudite cutlets, drest all ways but plain,
Or one's kidneys — imagine, Dick — done with champagne!
Then, some glasses of Beaune , to dilute — or, may hap,
Chambertin , which you know 's the pet tipple of N AP ,
And which Dad, by the by, that legitimate stickler,
Much scruples to taste, but I 'm not so partic'lar. —
Your coffee comes next, by prescription: and then Dick 's
The coffee's ne'er-failing and glorious appendix,
(If books had but such, my old Grecian, depend on 't,
I 'd swallow e'en Watkins', for sake of the end on 't,)
A neat glass of parfait-amour , which one sips
Just as if bottled velvet tipt over one's lips.