TRUE HOSPITALITY. Although the following poem contains no immediate reference to the Christmas season, still, the pictures which it presents of the hospitality of the period, and the character of the entertainment met with at the table of a country gentleman, of the reign of Charles I., render it peculiarly applicable to that particular season of the year, when open-handed liberality, such as it commemorates, is in the ascendant. TRUE HOSPITALITY: A PANEGYRIC TO SIR LEWIS PEMBERTON. TILL I shall come again, let this suffice, I send my salt, my sacrifice To thee, thy lady, younglings, and as far As to thy Genius and thy Larr ;* To the worn threshold, porch, hall, parlour, kitchen, Where laden spits, warped with large ribs of beef, To the lank stranger and the sour swain, Beats with a buttoned-staff the poor; No comer to thy roof his guest-rite wants; Or, staying there, is scourged with taunts Of some rough groom, who, yirked with corns, says, "Sir, You've dipt too long i' th' vinegar; And with our broth and bread and bits, Sir friend, You've fared well, pray make an end; An elfish spirit. Two days you 've larded here; a third, you know, Merry at another's hearth! you 're here Welcome as thunder to our beer;" Manners know distance, and a man unrude Would soon recoil, and not intrude His stomach to a second meal. No, no, Thy house, well fed and taught, can show No such crabbed visard: Thou hast learnt thy train. With heart and hand to entertain ; And by the armsful, with the breast unhid, As the old race of mankind did, When either's heart, and either's hand did strive To be the nearer relative; Thou dost redeem those times; and what was lost It keeps a growth in thee, and so will run With blasting eye, the appetite, Which fain would waste upon thy cates, but that Best and more suppling piece he cuts, and by Some private pinch tells danger's nigh, When checked by the butler's look. TRUE HOSPITALITY. No, no, thy bread, thy wine, thy jocund beer Is not reserved for Trebins here, But all who at thy table seated are, Find equal freedom, equal fare: And thou, like to that hospitable god, Jove, joy'st when guests make their abode To eat thy bullock's thighs, thy veals, thy fat Wethers, and never grudged at The pheasant, partridge, godwit, reeve, ruff, rail, Of thy glad table; not a dish more known But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine Makes the smirk face of each to shine, And spring fresh rosebuds, while the salt, the wit No scurrile jest, no open scene is laid Here, for to make the face afraid; But temp❜rate mirth dealt forth, and so discreet- By cruise and measure; thus devoting wine Repentance to his liberty. 1 THE WASSAIL. GIVE way, give way, ye gates, and win And basket, by our entering in. May both with manchet* stand replete, Yet, ere twelve moons shall whirl about Next, may your dairies prosper so, 1 THE WASSAIL. Like to a solemn sober stream, Banked all with lilies, and the cream Then may your plants be pressed with fruit, But sweetly sounding like a lute. Next, may your duck and teeming hen, And for their two eggs render ten. Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs, Alas! we bless, but see none here, Let's leave a longer time to wait, Where chimneys do for ever weep, It is in vain to sing, or stay Our free feet here, but we'll away; Yet to the Larés this we'll say: The time will come, when you'll be sad, And reckon this for fortune bad, T'ave lost the good ye might have had. |