Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

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  • Will in huge flinty masses chrystalize,
  • Which forceful fingers scarce can crumble down;
  • And which with its melasses ne’er will part:
  • Yet this, fast-dripping in nectarious drops,
  • Not only betters what remains, but when [440]
  • With art fermented, yields a noble wine,1
  • Than which nor Gallia, nor the Indian clime,
  • Where rolls the Ganges,2 can a nobler show.
  • So misers in their coffers lock that gold;
  • Which, if allowed at liberty to roam, [445]
  • Would better them, and benefit mankind.

  • IN the last coppers, when the embrowning wave
  • With sudden fury swells; some grease immix’d,
  • The foaming tumult sudden will compose,
  • And force to union the divided grain. [450]
  • So when two swarms in airy battle join,
  • The winged heroes heap the bloody field;
  • Until some dust, thrown upward in the sky,
  • Quell the wild conflict, and sweet peace restore.

  • FALSE Gallia’s sons, that hoe the ocean-isles, [455]
  • Mix with their Sugar, loads of worthless sand,
  1. Could refer to a fermented but undistilled molasses drink; also could refer to rum. ↩︎

  2. Also Ganga, a river that flows through India and Bangladesh. ↩︎