Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume IX. Tragedy: Humor. 1904. | | | | Humorous Poems: II. Miscellaneous | | A Recipe for Salad | | Sydney Smith (1771–1845) |
| | | TO make this condiment your poet begs | |
| The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs; | |
| Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, | |
| Smoothness and softness to the salad give; | |
| Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, | 5 |
| And, half suspected, animate the whole; | |
| Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, | |
| Distrust the condiment that bites so soon; | |
| But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault | |
| To add a double quantity of salt; | 10 |
| Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown, | |
| And twice with vinegar, procured from town; | |
| And lastly, o’er the flavored compound toss | |
| A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce. | |
| O green and glorious! O herbaceous treat! | 15 |
| ’T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat; | |
| Back to the world he ’d turn his fleeting soul, | |
| And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl; | |
| Serenely full, the epicure would say, | |
| “Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.” | 20 | | | |
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