Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

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  • Serves needful purposes. Are barbecues
  • The cates1 thou lov’st? What like rich skimmings feed [480]
  • The grunting, bristly kind? Your labouring mules
  • They soon invigorate: Give old Baynard2 these,
  • Untir’d he trudges in his destin’d round;
  • Nor need the driver crack his horrid lash.

  • YET, with small quantities indulge the steed, [485]
  • Whom skimmings ne’er have fatten’d: else, too fond,
  • So gluttons use, he’ll eat intemperate meals;
  • And, staggering, fall the prey of ravening sharks.

  • BUT say, ye boon companions, in what strains,
  • What grateful strains, shall I record the praise [490]
  • Of their best produce, heart-recruiting rum?
  • Thrice wholesome spirit! well-matur’d with age,
  • Thrice grateful to the palate! when, with thirst,
  • With heat, with labour, and wan care opprest,
  • I quaff thy bowl, where fruit my hands have cull’d, [495]
  • Round, golden fruit; where water from the spring,
  • Which dripping coolness spreads her umbrage round;
  • With hardest, whitest sugar, thrice refin’d;
  • Dilates my soul with genuine joy; low care
  1. Choice foods, viands, or delicacies. ↩︎

  2. Also bayard. A bay horse or mule. ↩︎