Volume 153 — TO MY BUTCHER.
Reading edition
O butcher, butcher of the bulbous eye, That in hoarse accents bidst me "buy, buy, buy!" Waving large hands suffused with brutish gore, Have I not found thee evil to the core? The greedy grocer grinds the face of me, The baker trades on my necessity, And from the milkman have I no surcease, But thou art Plunder's perfect masterpiece. These others are not always lost to shame; My grocer, now—last week he let me claim A pound of syrup—'twas a kindly deed To help a fellow-townsman in his need, Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl About his feet ere I might buy at all. But thou—although a myriad flocks may crop By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top, A myriad herds tumultuously snort From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte, Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado Resounds about the Llano Estacado; Though every abattoir works overtime And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat, How thou art sold clean out of this and that, But will oblige me, just for old time's sake, With half a shin bone or some hard flank steak; Or (if with mutton I prefer to deck My festive board) the scraggy end of neck. And once, when goaded to a desperate stand, I wrung a sirloin from thy grudging hand, Did not thy boy, a cheeky little brute With shifty eyes, mislay the thing en route, Depositing at my address the bones Intended for the dog of Mr. Jones? I sometimes think that never runs so thin The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin; That every link the sausageman prepares Harbours some wandering Towser unawares. And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!), Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties, Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead, And has the nerve to name the substance bread. But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown The type that cuts me off a pound of bone Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops, And calls the thing two shillings' worth of chops; More steeped in crime the heart that dares to fleece My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard, The price was fourpence for the running yard! Wherefore I hate thee, butcher, and would pass Untempted of thy viands. But, alas! The spirit that essays in master flights To sip the honey from Parnassus' heights, That daily doth his Pegasus bestride And keeps the War from spoiling on the side, Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out. So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy The tokens of thy heartless usury. Yet oft I dream that in some life to come, Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum, Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough, Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou, My ox, my beast, goest groaning at the tugs, And do I spare thy feelings? No, by jugs! With tireless lash I probe thy leaden feet, And beat and beat and beat and beat and beat. ALGOL.
