Salad

TO make this condiment, your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs.

Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve,

Smoothness and softness to the salad give.

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And, half-suspected, animate the whole.

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,

To add a double quantity of salt.

And, lastly, o’er the flavoured compound toss

A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.

Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!

’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;

Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!

Serenely full, the epicure would say,

Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day!