A SHRIMP! Black thing as widow's crape In its primeval, vitat shape; Red as a soldier's coat of cloth When stewed alive in native broth; Armed with such tusks at sides and jowl Would choke a dog to swallow whole; Seeming (good simile, I hope) Like flea in cloist'ring microscope, With staring eyes and whiskers long; Now—contradict me, if I'm wrong. A shrimp! (theme ample as I'd wish) Affords the angler bait to fish; And cooked up by the kitchen lass Supplies us, when they're dressed, with sauce; The oyster, juicy from the shell, Th' anchovy mixed, delight us well, But this the lymph with higher @3goût@1 Both relishes and thickens too. Lo! when in summer, stived to death, We roam th' inviting fields for breath, By Sadler's, rows of water-nymphs To trav'llers sell salacious shrimps; The fair receive 'em with delight In handkerchiefs all lily white, Cheap purchase, and amuse the way With feeding on this luscious prey; While, dreary sight! all scattered round, In heaps their skeletons are found. So in Arachne's web we spy Full many a fresh-embowelled fly; Or in old beds (coarse trope, I own) View bugs, all shrunk to skin and bone. Some taste, some smell, you'll all agree Must at one time most pleasing be; The shrimp both pleasures will dispense: But if apart each different sense You in perfection would regale, Then taste 'em fresh—and smell 'em stale. Good writers moral ends propose. Mark, mothers, mine, with which I close: Let not your children, meddling brats, This banquet taste—nor fav'rite cats; Lest, heedless of their beards, adsdikkins! You choke the pretty harmless chickens. |