chapter II

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

Many Italian poets have sung the praises of coffee. L. Barotti wrote his poem, _Il Caffè_ 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 noble 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 ship-loads; When slowly sipped it knows no rival.

Belli's _Il Caffè_ 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 shore, 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 cafés 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 passage on coffee already quoted:

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned; The berries crackle and the mill turns round; On shining altars of Japan 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_.

Cowper refers to coffee but once in his writings. In his _Pity for Poor Africans_ he expresses himself as "shocked at the ignorance of slaves":

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum For how could we do without sugar and rum? Especially sugar, so needful we see; What! Give up our desserts, our coffee and tea?

thus contenting himself, like many others, with words of pity where more

## active protest might sacrifice his personal ease and comfort.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), and John Keats (1795-1834), were worshippers at the shrine of coffee; while Charles Lamb, famous poet, essayist, humorist, and critic, has celebrated in verse the exploit of Captain de Clieu in the following delightful verses:

THE COFFEE SLIPS

Whene'er I fragrant coffee drink, I on the generous Frenchman think, Whose noble perseverance bore The tree to Martinico's shore. While yet her colony was new, Her island products but a few; Two shoots from off a coffee tree He carried with him o'er the sea. Each little tender coffee slip He waters daily in the ship. And as he tends his embryo trees. Feels he is raising 'midst the seas Coffee groves, whose ample shade Shall screen the dark Creolian maid. But soon, alas! His darling pleasure In watching this his precious treasure Is like to fade--for water fails On board the ship in which he sails. Now all the reservoirs are shut. The crew on short allowance put; So small a drop is each man's share. Few leavings you may think there are To water these poor coffee plants-- But he supplies their grasping wants, Even from his own dry parched lips He spares it for his coffee slips. Water he gives his nurslings first, Ere he allays his own deep thirst, Lest, if he first the water sip, He bear too far his eager lip. He sees them droop for want of more; Yet when they reach the destined shore, With pride the heroic gardener sees A living sap still in his trees. The islanders his praise resound; Coffee plantations rise around; And Martinico loads her ships With produce from those dear-saved slips.

In John Keats' amusing fantasy, _Cap and Bells_, the Emperor Elfinan greets Hum, the great soothsayer, and offers him refreshment:

"You may have sherry in silver, hock in gold, or glass'd champagne ... what cup will you drain?"

"Commander of the Faithful!" answered Hum, "In preference to these, I'll merely taste A thimble-full of old Jamaica rum." "A simple boon," said Elfinan; "thou mayst Have Nantz, with which my morning coffee's laced."

But Hum accepts the glass of Nantz, without the coffee, "made racy with the third part of the least drop of _crème de citron_, crystal clear."

Numerous broadsides printed in London, 1660 to 1675, have been referred to in