All About Coffee Part 102

And thus though my palate be dulled by age, With joy I partake of thy dear beverage.

How glad I prepare me thy nectar most precious, No soul shall usurp me a rite so delicious; On the ambient flame when the black charcoal burns, The gold of thy bean to rare ebony turns, I alone, 'gainst the cone, wrought with fierce iron teeth.

Make thy fruitage cry out with its bitter-sweet breath; Till charmed with such perfume, with care I entrust To the pot on my hearth the rare spice-laden dust: First to calm, then excite, till it seethingly whirls, With an eye all attention I gaze till it boils.

At last now the liquid comes slow to repose; In the hot, smoking vessel its wealth I depose, My cup and thy nectar; from wild reeds expressed, America's honey my table has blest; All is ready; j.a.pan's gay enamel invites-- And the tribute of two worlds thy prestige unites: Come, Nectar divine, inspire thou me, I wish but Antigone, dessert and thee; For scarce have I tasted thy odorous steam, When quick from thy clime, soothing warmths round me stream, Attentive my thoughts rise and flow light as air, Awaking my senses and soothing my care.

Ideas that but late moved so dull and depressed, Behold, they come smiling in rich garments dressed!

Some genius awakes me, my course is begun; For I drink with each drop a bright ray of the sun.

Maumenet addressed to Galland the following verses:

If slumber, friend, too near, with some late gla.s.s should creep-- Dull, poppy-perfumed sleep-- If a too fumous wine confounds at length thy brain-- Take coffee then--this juice divine Shall banish sleep and steam of vap'rous wine, And with its timely aid fresh vigor thou shalt find.

Castel, in his poem, _Les Plantes_ (The Plants) could not omit the coffee trees of the tropics. He thus addressed them in 1811:

Bright plants, the favorites of Phoebus, In these climes the rarest virtues offer, Delicious Mocha, thy sap, enchantress, Awakens genius, outvalues Parna.s.se!

In a collection of the _Songs of Brittany_ in the Brest library there are many stanzas in praise of coffee. A Breton poet has composed a little piece of ninety-six verses in which he describes the powerful attraction that coffee has for women and the possible effects on domestic happiness. The first time that coffee was used in Brittany, says an old song of that country, only the n.o.bility drank it, and now all the common people are using it, yet the greater part of them have not even bread.

A French poet of the eighteenth century produced the following:

LINES ON COFFEE

_Translation from the French_

Good coffee is more than a savory cup, Its aroma has power to dry liquor up.

By coffee you get upon leaving the table A mind full of wisdom, thoughts lucid, nerves stable; And odd tho' it be, 't is none the less true, Coffee's aid to digestion permits dining anew.

And what 's very true, tho' few people know it, Fine coffee 's the basis of every fine poet; For many a writer as windy as Boreas Has been vastly improved by the drink ever glorious.

Coffee brightens the dullness of heavy philosophy, And opens the science of mighty geometry.

Our law-makers, too, when the nectar imbibing, Plan wondrous reforms, quite beyond the describing; The odor of coffee they delight in inhaling, And promise the country to alter laws ailing.

From the brow of the scholar coffee chases the wrinkles, And mirth in his eyes like a firefly twinkles; And he, who before was but a hack of old Homer, Becomes an original, and that 's no misnomer.

Observe the astronomer who 's straining his eyes In watching the planets which soar thro' the skies; Alas, all those bright bodies seem hopelessly far Till coffee discloses his own guiding star.

But greatest of wonders that coffee effects Is to aid the news-editor as he little expects; Coffee whispers the secrets of hidden diplomacy, Hints rumors of wars and of scandals so racy.

Inspiration by coffee must be nigh unto magic, For it conjures up facts that are certainly tragic; And for a few pennies, coffee's small price per cup, "Ye editor's" able to swallow the Universe up.

Esmenard celebrated Captain de Clieu's romantic voyage to Martinique with the coffee plants from the Jardin des Plantes, in some admirable verses quoted in chapter II.

Among other notable poetic flights in praise of coffee produced in France mention should be made of: "_L'Eloge du Cafe_" (Eulogy of Coffee) a song in twenty-four couplets, Paris, Jacques Estienne, 1711; _Le Cafe_ (Coffee), a fragment from the fourth _chant_ (song) of _La Grandeur de Dieu dans les merveilles de la Nature_ (The Grandeur of G.o.d in the Wonders of Nature) Ma.r.s.eilles; _Le Cafe_, extract from the fourth gastronomic song, by Berchoux; "_A Mon Cafe_" (To My Coffee), stanzas written by Ducis; _Le Cafe_, anonymous stanzas inserted in the _Macedoine Poetique_, 1824; a poem in Latin in the Abbe Olivier's collection; _Le Bouquet Blanc et le Bouquet Noir, poesie en quatre chants; Le Cafe_, C.D. Mery, 1837; _Eloge du Cafe_, S. Melaye, 1852.

Many Italian poets have sung the praises of coffee. L. Barotti wrote his poem, _Il Caffe_ in 1681. Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799), Italy's great satirical and lyric poet and critic of the eighteenth century, in _Il Giorno_ (_The Day_), gives a delightful pen picture of the manners and customs of Milan's polite society of the period. William Dean Howells quotes as follows from these poems (his own translation) in his _Modern Italian Poets_. The feast is over, and the lady signals to the cavalier that it is time to leave the table:

Spring to thy feet The first of all, and, drawing near thy lady, Remove her chair and offer her thy hand, And lead her to the other room, nor suffer longer That the stale reek of viands shall offend Her delicate sense. Thee with the rest invites The grateful odor of the coffee, where It smokes upon a smaller table hid And graced with Indian webs. The redolent gums That meanwhile burn, sweeten and purify The heavy atmosphere, and banish thence All lingering traces of the feast. Ye sick And poor, whom misery or whom hope, perchance!

Has guided in the noonday to these doors.

Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng, With mutilated limbs and squalid faces, In litters and on crutches from afar Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils Drink in the nectar of the feast divine That favourable zephyrs waft to you; But do not dare besiege these n.o.ble precincts, Importunately offering her that reigns Within your loathsome spectacle of woe!

And now, sir, 't is your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's lips; And now bethink thee whether she prefer The boiling beverage much or little tempered With sweet; or if, perchance, she likes it best, As doth the barbarous spouse, then when she sits Upon brocades of Persia, with light fingers, The bearded visage of her lord caressing.

This is from _Il Mezzogiorno_ (_Noon_). The other three poems, rounding out _The Day_, are _Il Mattino_ (_Morning_), _Il Vespre_ (_Evening_), and _La Notte_ (_Night_). In _Il Mattino_, Parini sings:

Should dreary hypochondria's woes oppress thee, Should round thy charming limbs in too great measure Thy flesh increase, then with thy lips do honor To that clear beverage, made from the well-bronzed, The smoking, ardent beans Aleppo sends thee, And distant Mocha too, a thousand s.h.i.+p-loads; When slowly sipped it knows no rival.

Belli's _Il Caffe_ supplies a partial bibliography of the Italian literature on coffee. There are many poems, some of them put to music.

As late as 1921, there were published in Bologna some advertising verses on coffee by G.B. Zecchini with music by Cesare Cantino.

Pope Leo XIII, in his Horatian poem on _Frugality_ composed in his eighty-eighth year, thus verses his appreciation of coffee:

Last comes the beverage of the Orient sh.o.r.e, Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore.

Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip, Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip.

Peter Altenberg, a Vienna poet, thus celebrated the cafes of his native city:

TO THE COFFEE HOUSE!

When you are worried, have trouble of one sort or another--to the coffee house!

When she did not keep her appointment, for one reason or other--to the coffee house!

When your shoes are torn and dilapidated--coffee house!

When your income is four hundred crowns and you spend five hundred--coffee house!

You are a chair warmer in some office, while your ambition led you to seek professional honors--coffee house!

You could not find a mate to suit you--coffee house!

You feel like committing suicide--coffee house!

You hate and despise human beings, and at the same time you can not be happy without them--coffee house!

You compose a poem which you can not inflict upon friends you meet in the street--coffee house!

When your coal scuttle is empty, and your gas ration exhausted--coffee house!

When you need money for cigarettes, you touch the head waiter in the--coffee house!

When you are locked out and haven't the money to pay for unlocking the house door--coffee house!

When you acquire a new flame, and intend provoking the old one, you take the new one to the old one's--coffee house!

When you feel like hiding you dive into a--coffee house!

When you want to be seen in a new suit--coffee house!

When you can not get anything on trust anywhere else--coffee house!

English poets from Milton to Keats celebrated coffee. Milton (1608-1674) in his _Comus_ thus acclaimed the beverage:

One sip of this Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight Beyond the bliss of dreams.

Alexander Pope, poet and satirist (1688-1744), has the oft-quoted lines:

Coffee which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

In Carruthers' _Life of Pope_, we read that this poet inhaled the steam of coffee in order to obtain relief from the headaches to which he was subject. We can well understand the inspiration which called forth from him the following lines when he was not yet twenty:

As long as Mocha's happy tree shall grow, While berries crackle, or while mills shall go; While smoking streams from silver spouts shall glide, Or China's earth receive the sable tide, While coffee shall to British nymphs be dear, While fragrant steams the bended head shall cheer, Or grateful bitters shall delight the taste, So long her honors, name and praise shall last.

Pope's famous _Rape of the Lock_ grew out of coffee-house gossip. The poem contains the pa.s.sage on coffee already quoted:

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned; The berries crackle and the mill turns round; On s.h.i.+ning altars of j.a.pan they raise The silver lamp: the fiery spirits blaze: From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, While China's earth receives the smoking tide.

At once they gratify their scent and taste.

And frequent cups prolong the rich repast Straight hover round the fair her airy band; Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned: Some o'er her lap their careful plumes displayed, Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.

Coffee (which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.) Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.

Pope often broke the slumbers of his servant at night by calling him to prepare a cup of coffee; but for regular serving, it was his custom to grind and to prepare it upon the table.

William Cowper's fine tribute to "the cups that cheer but not inebriate", a phrase which he is said to have borrowed from Bishop Berkeley, was addressed to tea and not to coffee, to which it has not infrequently been wrongfully attributed. It is one of the most pleasing pictures in _The Task_.