Volume 146 — TWO EYES OF GRAY.
Reading edition
"Sprats should be cooked very fresh. Their condition can be ascertained by their eyes, which should be bright."
Cookery Book.
How cold the culinary mind That household care absorbs! Can the observer really find Within yon sparkling orbs No message, nothing further than A fitness for the frying-pan? For oh, in that pathetic gaze What crowded memories dwell! What wistful dreams of briny days Beneath the surging swell, Ere fate had seized this little fish And plumped him on an earthen dish! Methinks I see him even now, As late he sailed along With smiling and unruffled brow Amid the finny throng, No gladder, gayer sprat than he In all the caverns of the sea. With what a rapture would he tweak The casual kipper's tail, Or nimbly sport at hide-and-seek Around the whiskered whale! (Do whales that haunt the ocean wave Wear whiskers? Some do, others shave.) And, when by hunger overcome He felt a trifle limp, What joy within his vacuum To stow the passing shrimp, And afterwards to sink and snooze, Soft-cradled on the nether ooze! Ah, yes, as I behold those eyes So bright, so crystal-clear, I feel within my own uprise A sympathetic tear; But supper's call one must obey, And so I dash the drops away.