Tea's Apologia.

Loved by a host from Noah's days till now,
Extolled by bards in many a glowing line,
My purple rival of the mantling brow
May laugh to scorn this swarthy face of mine.
I care not: many a weary pain I cure;
Cold, heat and thirst I harmlessly abate;
I bless the weak, the aged and the poor;
And I have known the favor of the great.

I've cheered the minds of mighty poets gone;
Philosophers have owned my solace true;
Shy Cowper was my sweet Anacreon;
Keen Hazlitt craved "whole goblets" of my brew;
De Quincey praised my stimulating draught;
What cups of me old Doctor Johnson quaffed!

W. M. MacKeracher

W. M. MacKeracher was a poet known for his contributions to Canadian literature during the early 20th century. His works often focused on themes of nature, human emotion, and the simplicity of rural life. Though not as widely known as some of his contemporaries, MacKeracher's poetry has been appreciated for its lyrical quality and depth. Much of his work was published in regional journals and anthologies, capturing the essence of Canadian landscapes and the human experience within them. His exact birth and death dates remain obscure.

W. M. MacKeracher

An Aristocrat.

W. M. MacKeracher, Simple Poetry

Sonnet to Shelley.

W. M. MacKeracher, Simple Poetry

Montreal.

W. M. MacKeracher, Simple Poetry

Before Harvest.

W. M. MacKeracher, Simple Poetry

English

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A Cup Of Tea.

    I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
        Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
    I have flourished brandy-smashes
        In the wildest sort of way;
    I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
        Till wee hours ayont the twal' -
    But I've found my tea the very
        Safest tipple of them all!

    'Tis a mystical potation
        That exceeds in warmth of glow
    And divine exhilaration
        All the drugs of long ago -
    All of old magicians' potions -
        Of Medea's filtered spells -
    Or of fabled isles and oceans
        Where the Lotos-eater dwells!

    Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
        With blasé dramatic stars,
    And absorbed their wit and punches
        And the fumes of their cigars -

James Whitcomb Riley

A Pot of Tea

You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
The very breath of it is ripe with cheer.
You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot;
You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot;
It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot:
God bless the man that first discovered Tea!

Since I came out to fight in France, which ain't the other day,
I think I've drunk enough to float a barge;
All kinds of fancy foreign dope, from caffy and doo lay,
To rum they serves you out before a charge.
In back rooms of estaminays I've gurgled pints of cham;
I've swilled down mugs of cider till I've felt a bloomin' dam;
But 'struth! t...

Robert William Service

A Ballad Of The Boston Tea-Party

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their Lord,
Her over-kind protector, -
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape
And took to such behaving
As would have shamed our grandsire ape
Before the days of shaving, -
No! ne'er was mingled such a draught
In palace, hall, or arbor,
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston Harbor!
The Western war-cloud's crimson stained
The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon;
Full many a six-foot grenadier
The flattened grass had measured,
And many a mother many a year
Her tearful memories treasured;
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall,
The mighty realms were troubled,
The storm...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Beer.

In those old days which poets say were golden -
(Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves:
And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves,
Who talk to me "in language quaint and olden"
Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves,
Pans with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards,
And staid young goddesses who flirt with shepherds:)

In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette
(Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born.
They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet,
No fashions varying as the hues of morn.
Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and ate,
Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn)
And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked,
And were no doubt extremely incorrect.

Yet do I think their t...

Charles Stuart Calverley

De Tea Fabula.

Plain Language from truthful James^[1].


Do I sleep?    Do I dream?
    Am I hoaxed by a scout?
Are things what they seem,
    Or is Sophists about?
Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these
    May be fairly applied
By a party who sees
    A Society skied
Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third,
    And I says to Bill Nye,
'Which it's true what I've heard:
    If you're, so to speak, fly,
There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High.'

Which I mentioned its name,
    And he ups and remarks:
'If dress-coats is the game
    And pow-wow in the Parks,
Then I 'm nuts on...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

The Secret Of The Stars - From Readings Over The Teacups - Five Stories And A Sequel

Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides
The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides?
Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding Earth,
Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth,
And calm the noisy champions who have thrown
The book of types against the book of stone!

Have ye not secrets, ye refulgent spheres,
No sleepless listener of the starlight hears?
In vain the sweeping equatorial pries
Through every world-sown corner of the skies,
To the far orb that so remotely strays
Our midnight darkness is its noonday blaze;
In vain the climbing soul of creeping man
Metes out the heavenly concave with a span,
Tracks into space the long-lost meteor's trail,
And weighs an unseen planet in the scale;
Still o'er their doubts the wan-eyed watchers sigh,
...

Oliver Wendell Holmes