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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472310" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Haunch Of Venison</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter<br>Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter;<br>The haunch was a picture for painters to study,<br>The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy.<br>Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting <br>To spoil such a delicate picture by eating;<br>I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view,<br>To be shown to my friends as a piece of 'virtu';<br>As in some Irish houses, where things are so so,<br>One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show: <br>But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,<br>They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in.<br>But hold -- let me pause -- Don't I hear you pronounce<br>This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce?<br>Well, suppose it a bounce -- sure a poet may try, <br>By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, my Lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my turn,<br>It's a truth -- and your Lordship may ask Mr. Byrne.<br>To go on with my tale -- as I gaz'd on the haunch,<br>I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch; <br>So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undress'd,<br>To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best.<br>Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;<br>'Twas a neck and a breast -- that might rival M--r--'s:<br>But in parting with these I was puzzled again, <br>With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.<br>There's H--d, and C--y, and H--rth, and H--ff,<br>I think they love venison -- I know they love beef;<br>There's my countryman H--gg--ns-- Oh! let him alone,<br>For making a blunder, or picking a bone. <br>But hang it -- to poets who seldom can eat,<br>Your very good mutton's a very good treat;<br>Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt,<br>It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.<br>While thus I debated, in reverie centred, <br>An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd;<br>An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,<br>And he smil'd as he look'd at the venison and me.<br>'What have we got here? -- Why, this is good eating!<br>Your own, I suppose -- or is it in waiting?' <br>'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce,<br>'I get these things often;' -- but that was a bounce:<br>'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,<br>Are pleas'd to be kind -- but I hate ostentation.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'If that be the case, then,' cried he, very gay, <br>'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.<br>To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;<br>No words -- I insist on't -- precisely at three:<br>We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;<br>My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare. <br>And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!<br>We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.<br>What say you -- a pasty? it shall, and it must,<br>And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.<br>Here, porter! -- this venison with me to Mile-end; <br>No stirring -- I beg -- my dear friend -- my dear friend!<br>Thus snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind,<br>And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,<br>'And nobody with me at sea but myself'; <br>Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,<br>Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty,<br>Were things that I never dislik'd in my life,<br>Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.<br>So next day, in due splendour to make my approach, <br>I drove to his door in my own hackney coach.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When come to the place where we all were to dine,<br>(A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine<br>My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb,<br>With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; <br>'For I knew it,' he cried, 'both eternally fail,<br>The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale;<br>But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party<br>With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty.<br>The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, <br>They're both of them merry and authors like you;<br>The one writes the 'Snarler', the other the 'Scourge';<br>Some think he writes 'Cinna' -- he own to 'Panurge'.'<br>While thus he describ'd them by trade, and by name,<br>They enter'd and dinner was serv'd as they came. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen,<br>At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen;<br>At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot;<br>In the middle a place where the pasty -- was not.<br>Now, my Lord as for tripe, it's my utter aversion, <br>And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian;<br>So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,<br>While the bacon and liver went merrily round.<br>But what vex'd me most was that d--'d Scottish rogue,<br>With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue; <br>And, 'Madam,' quoth he, 'may this bit be my poison,<br>A prettier dinner I never set eyes on;<br>Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs'd,<br>But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.;<br>'The tripe,' quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, <br>'I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week:<br>I like these here dinners so pretty and small;<br>But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.'<br>'O--Oh!' quoth my friend, 'he'll come on in a trice,<br>He's keeping a corner for something that's nice: <br>There's a pasty' -- 'A pasty!' repeated the Jew,<br>'I don't care if I keep a corner for't too.'<br>'What the de'il, mon, a pasty!' re-echoed the Scot,<br>'Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for thot.'<br>'We'll all keep a corner,' the lady cried out; <br>'We'll all keep a corner,' was echoed about.<br>While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd,<br>With look that quite petrified, enter'd the maid;<br>A visage so sad, and so pale with affright,<br>Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. <br>But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her?<br>That she came with some terrible news from the baker:<br>And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven<br>Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven<br>Sad Philomel thus -- but let similes drop -- <br>And now that I think on't, the story may stop.<br>To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplac'd<br>To send such good verses to one of your taste;<br>You've got an odd something -- a kind of discerning --<br>A relish -- a taste -- sicken'd over by learning; <br>At least, it's your temper, as very well known,<br>That you think very slightly of all that's your own:<br>So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,<br>You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oliver+Goldsmith">Oliver Goldsmith</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472310" data-title="The Haunch Of Venison de Oliver Goldsmith" data-description="A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE

THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter;
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy.
Though my s..."></div>
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