Tho' much averse, dear Jack, to flicker, <br />To find a likeness for friend V----ker, <br />I've made, thro' earth, and air, and sea, <br />A voyage of discovery! <br />And let me add (to ward off strife) <br />For V----kers, and for V----kers' wife-- <br />She, large and round, beyond belief, <br />A superfluity of beef! <br />Her mind and body of a piece, <br />And both composed of kitchen-grease. <br />In short, dame Truth might safely dub her <br />Vulgarity enshrined in blubber! <br />He, meagre bit of littleness, <br />All snuff, and musk, and politesse; <br />So thin, that strip him of his clothing, <br />He'd totter on the edge of nothing! <br />In case of foe, he well might hide <br />Snug in the collops of her side. <br />Ah then, what simile will suit? <br />Spindle leg in great jack-boot? <br />Pismire crawling in a rut, <br />Or a spigot in a butt? <br />Thus I humm'd and ha'd awhile, <br />When Madam Memory, with a smile, <br />Thus touched my ear--'Why sure, I ween, <br />In London streets thou oft hast seen <br />The very image of this pair: <br />A little ape, with huge she bear <br />Linked by hapless chain together: <br />An unlicked mass the one -- the other <br />An antic huge with nimble crupper'-- <br />But stop, my Muse! for here comes supper.<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-written-after-a-walk-before-supper/
