Tea, a poem/Tea
TEA,
A POEМ.
Earnestly rcommended to the attention of all maidens of certain age.
Old time, my dear girls, is a knave who in truth
From the fairest of beauties will pélfer their youth;
Who by constant attention and wily deceit,
For ever is coaxing some grace to retreat;
And, like crafty seducer, with subtle approach,
The further indulged, will still further encroach.
Since this "theif of the world" has made off with your bloom;
And left you some seore of stale years in its room—
Has deprived you of all those gay dreams, that would dance
In your brains at fifteen, and your bosoms entrance;
And has forced you almost to renounce in despair
The hope of a husband's affection and care!
Since such is the case, and a case rather hard!
Permit one who holds you in special regard
To furnish such hints in your loveless estate
As may shelter your names from detraction and hate.
Too often our maidens, grown aged I ween,
Indulge to excess in the workings of spleen;
And at times when annoy'd by the slights of mankind,
Work off their resentment—by speaking their mind:
Assemble together in snuff—taking clan,
And hold round the tea-urn a solemn divan
A convention of tattling—a tea party hight,
Which, like meeting of witches, is brew'd up at night,
Where each matron arrives, fraught with tales of surprise,
with knowing suspicion and doubtful surmise;
Like the broomstick whirl'd hags that appear in Macbeth,
Each bearing some relic of venom or death,
"To stir up the toil and to double the trouble,
That fire may burn, and that caldron may bubble."
When the party commences, all starch'd and all glum,
They talk of the weather, their corns, or sit mum:
They will tell you of cambric, of ribands, of lace,
How cheap they were sold—and will name you the place.
They discourse of their colds, and they hem, and they cough
And complain of their servants to pass the time off;
Or list to the tale of some doting mamma
How her ten weeks old baby will laugh and say taa!
But tea, that enlivener of wit and of soul—
More loquacious by far than the draughts of the bowl,
Soon unloosens the tongue and enlivens the mind,
And enlightens their eyes to the faults of mankind.
'Twas thus with the Pythia, who served at the fount
That flow'd near the far-famed Parnassion mount,
While the steam was inhaled of the sulphuric spring
Her vision expanded, her fancy took wing:
By its aid she pronounced the oracular will
That Apollo commanded his sons to fulfil.
But alas! the sad vestal, performing the rite,
Appeared like a demon—terrific to sight.
E’en the priests of Apollo averted their eyes,
And the temple of Delphi reounded her cries.
But quitting the nymph of the tripod of yore,
We return to the dames of the tea-pot once more.
In harmless chit-chat an acquaintance they roast
And serve up a friend, a they serve up a toast,
Some gentle faux pas, or some female mistake,
Is like sweetmeat delicious, or relished as cake;
A bit of broad scandle is like a dry crust
It would stick in the throat, so the butter it first
With a little affected good nature, and cry
"No body regrets the thing deeper than I."
Our young ladies nibble a good name in play
As for pastime they nibble a biscut away
While with shrugs and surmises the toothless old dame,
As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a name.
And as the fell sisters astonished the Scot
In predicting of banquo's descendants the lot,
Making shadows of kings, amid flashes o light
To appear in array and to frown in his sight,
So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue
Which as shades of their neighbours, are pass'd in review.
The wives of our cits of inferior degree
Will soak up repute in a little bohea;
The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang
With which on their neighbour's deffects they harrangue;
But the scandal improves, a refinement in wrong!
As our matrons are richer, and rise to souchong.
With hyson a beverage that's still more refined,
Our ladies of fashon enliven their mind,
And by nods, innuendoes, and hints, and what not,
Reputations and tea send together to pot.
While madam in laces and cambrics array'd
With her plate and her liviries in splended parade,
Will drink in imperial a friend at a sup,
Or in gunpowder blow them in dozens all up.
Ah me! how I groan when with full swelling sail
Wafted stately along by the favouring gale,
A china ship proudly arrives in our bay,
Displaying her streamers and blazing away.
Oh! more fell to our port is the cargo she bears
Than grenadoes, torpedoes, or warlike affairs.
Each chest is a boomshell thrown into our town,
To shatter repute and bring character down.
Ye Samquas, ye Chinquas, ye Chonquas so free,
Who discharge on our coasts your cursed quantums of tea,
Oh! think as ye waft the sad weed from your strand,
Of the plagues and vexations ye deal to our land.
As the Upas' dread breath, o'er the plain where it flies,
Empoisons and blasts each green blade that may rise,
So wherever the leaves of your shrub find their way,
The social affectations soon suffer decay:
Like Java's drear waste they embarran the heart,
Till the blossoms of love and friendsip depart.
Ah, ladies, and was it by heaven design'd
That ye should be merciful, loving and kind
Did it form you like angels and send you below
To prophecy peace—and bid charity flow!
And have you thus left your primeval state,
And wandred so widely—so strangely of late?
Alas! the sad cause I too plainly can see—
These evils have all come upon you by tea!
Cursed weed, that can make our fair spirits resign
The character mild of their mission divine;
That can blot from their bosoms that tenderness true,
Which from female to female for ever is due!
O! how nice is the texture—how fragile the frame
Of that delicate blossom, a female's fair fame!
'Tis the sensitive plant, it secoils from the breath;
And shrinks from the touch as if pregnant with death,
How often, how often, has inocence sigh’d.
Has beauty been reft of its honour—its pride.
Has virtue, though pure as angel light,
Been painted as dark as a demon o nht,
All offered up victims, an auto da fe,
At the gloomy cabals—the dark orgies of tea!
If I, in the remnant that's left me of life,
Am to suffer the torment of slanderous strife,
Let me fall I implore in the slang-whanger's claw,
Where the evil is open and subject to law;
Not nibbled, and mumbled, and put the rack,
By the sly underminings of tea-party clack:
Condemn me, ye gods to a newspaper roasting,
But spare me! O spare me, a tea-table toasting!
