Prologue (Ferishtah's Fancies)

Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans
Ever in Italy?
Recall how cooks there cook them: for my plan 's
To--Lyre with Spit ally.
They pluck the birds,--some dozen luscious lumps,
Or more or fewer,--
Then roast them, heads by heads and rumps by rumps,
Stuck on a skewer.
But first,--and here 's the point I fain would press,--
Don't think I 'm tattling!--
They interpose, to curb its lusciousness,
--What, 'twixt each fatling?
First comes plain bread, crisp, brown, a toasted square:
Then, a strong sage-leaf:
(So we find books with flowers dried here and there
Lest leaf engage leaf.)
First, food--then, piquancy--and last of all
Follows the thirdling:
Through wholesome hard, sharp soft, your tooth must bite
Ere reach the birdling.
Now, were there only crust to crunch, you 'd wince:
Unpalatable!
Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent--so 's a quince:
Eat each who 's able!
But through all three bite boldly--lo, the gust!
Flavor--no fixture--
Flies permeating flesh and leaf and crust
In fine admixture.
So with your meal, my poem: masticate
Sense, sight, and song there!
Digest these, and I praise your peptics' state,
Nothing found wrong there.
Whence springs my illustration who can tell?
--The more surprising
That here eggs, milk, cheese, fruit suffice so well
For gormandizing.
A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee,
Delightful Gressoney!
Who laughest "Take what is, trust what may be!"
That 's Life's true lesson,--eh?

MAISON DELAPIERRE,
Gressoney St. Jean, Val d'Aosta,
September 12, '83.