Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE; MADE AT THE COCK, by ALFRED TENNYSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE; MADE AT THE COCK, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: O plump head-waiter at the cock
Last Line: And one became head-waiter.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tennyson, Lord Alfred; Tennyson, 1st Baron; Tennyson Of Aldworth And Farringford, Baron
Variant Title(s): Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue
Subject(s): Restaurants; Cafes; Diners


O PLUMP head-waiter at the Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:
But let it not be such as that
You set before chance comers,
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,
To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten,

Head-waiter, honoured by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,
The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But though the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stifler.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my pepties difler?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a seasoned brain about,
Unsubject to confusion,
Though soaked and saturate, out and out,
Through every convolution.

For I am of a numberous house,
With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse
As who shall say me nay:
Each month, a birth-day coming on,
We drink, defying trouble,
Or sometimes two would meet in one,
And then we drank it double;

Whether the vintage, yet unkept,
Had relish fiery-new,
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,
As old as Waterloo;
Or stowed (when classic Canning died)
In musty bins and chambers,
Had cast upon its crusty side
The gloom of ten Decembers.

The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is!
She answered to my call.
She changes with that mood or this,
Is all-in-all to all:
She lit the spark within my throat,
To make my blood run quicker,
Used all her fiery will, and smote
Her life into the liquor.

And hence this halo lives about
The waiter's hands, that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.
He looks not like the common breed
That with the napkin dally;
I think be came like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley.

The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stepped forward on a firmer leg,
And crammed a plumper crop;
Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
Crowed lustier late and early,
Sipped wine from silver, praising God,
And raked in golden barley.

A private life was all his joy,
Till in a court he saw
A something-pottle-bodied boy
That knuckled at the taw:
He stooped and clutched him, fair and good,
Flew over roof and casement:
His brothers of the weather stood
Stock-still for sheer amazement.

But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,
And followed with acclaims,
A sign to many a staring shire,
Came crowing over Thames,
Right down by smoky Paul's they bore,
Till, where the street grows straiter,
One fixed for ever at the door,
And one became head-waiter.





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