The Triumph of Jam (Rhymes for the Times)

(_With shamefaced apologies to the author of a beautiful poem_)

[The _Daily Mirror_, in a leading article, deplored the fact
that 'roly-poly' pudding, otherwise known as 'jam-roll,' was not
to be obtained at fashionable West End restaurants.]

Although our wives deride for ever,
Though cooks grow captious or gaze aghast
(Cooks, swift to sunder, to slash and sever
The ties that bind us to things long past),
We will say as much as a man might wish
Whose whole life's love comes up on a dish,
Which he never again may feast on, and never
Shall taste of more while the ages last.

I shall never again be friends with 'rolies,'
I shall lack sweet 'polies' where, thick like glue,
The jam in some secret Holy of Holies
Crouches and cowers from mortal view.
There are tastes that a tongue would fain forget,
There are savours the soul must e'er regret;
My tongue how hungry, how starved my soul is!
I shall miss 'jam-pudding' my whole life through!

The gleam and the glamour, glimmering through it,
The steam that rises, to greet the sun,
The fragrant fumes of the jam and suet
That mix and mingle, to blend as one;
The white-capped cook who stirs so hard,
To twine the treacle and knead the lard,
To soak and season, to blend and brew it --
These things are over, and no more done!

I must go _my_ ways (others shall follow),
Filling myself, till I rise replete,
With fugitive things not good to swallow,
Drink as my friends drink, eat what they eat;
But if I could hear that sound (O squish! )
Of the 'roly-poly' leaving its dish,
My heart would be lighter, my life less hollow,
At sight of my childhood's favourite sweet!

Ah, why do I live in an age that winces
At 'shape' (blanc-mange) of a bygone brand,
At tripe and trotters, at stews and minces,
At hash or at haggis, heavy in hand?
Come lunch, come dinner, no word is said
Of the jam that in suet so veils its head.
I shall never eat it again, for at Princes'
If I cry for it there, will they understand?

End of title