The Haunch of Venison by Oliver Goldsmith — Read

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE

THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter / Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter; / The haunch was a picture for painters to study, / The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy. / Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting / To spoil such a delicate picture by eating; / I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, / To be shown to my friends as a piece of _virtù_; / As in some Irish houses, where things are so so, / One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show: / But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, / They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. / But hold-let me pause-Don't I hear you pronounce / This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce? / Well, suppose it a bounce-sure a poet may try, / By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly.