Salad

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,     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.     And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss     A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.     Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!     'Twould 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 can not harm me, I have dined to-day!