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Calverley: Verses and Fly Leaves
So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt
Has always struck me as extremely curious.
The Greek mind must have had some vital fault,
That they should stick to liquors so injurious—
(Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt)-r-
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 whisky-toddy?
Some say the Gaelic mixture, / the Saxon:
I think a strict adherence to the latter
Might make some Scots less pigheaded, and fatter.
Besides, Bon Gaultier definitely shows
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, Allsopp, 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 ,
Misguided sons that 'the best drink was water'.
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