University of Virginia Library

Reader, when thro' the country going
You 've, doubtless, seen potatoes growing.
And when the frosts of autumn cold
Have nipp'd the grass and bound the mould,
Stripp'd trees like spars bereft of rigging,—
Doubtless you 've seen potatoe-digging.

O! ye, who drive some useful trade,
Yet long the farmer's life to lead,
Because in some wee patch of ground,
Hemm'd in by walls and buildings round,
You make it pastime with the hoe
To spend an odd half hour, or so,
And boast your skill to raise tomatoes,—
Turn out one day and dig potatoes!
Wind, dead north pole! and you may hear
Cool Boreas purring in your ear;
Divided, your opinion lingers
'Twixt itching nose and dirty fingers
As from the fountain of your brain
The sap drips like the sugar rain;
And when in order to reflect
Should you your aching spine erect,
Then envy not the crow that flies
Bowling along the windy skies,
Or, tacking in the current, scuds
To the lee side of sheltering woods;
But still if farmer's life you covet,
Think ‘what is truth,’ and say you love it.

Potatoes! who would ever dream
Of winning bays with such a theme!
'T were vain to try, I 'd surely think it,
Unless with something one could link it,—
Something that should throughout the whole
Pervade the body with a soul.
So briefly then to join, I'll try,
Potatoes and humanity.

Potatoes! true the theme is homely,
But there are others far less comely;
Nor do I care how critics thwack me
Since Paul himself will kindly back me.

First, note this sober looking fellow,
His color of a dingy yellow;
Rough his exterior, you see,
But, for all that, give him to me.
Nature has booked him ‘No. One;’
A little cooking and he 's done.
The staff of life is wrap'd within
This honest old potatoe's skin,
And wheresoever you may meet him
You'll love him well enough to eat him.

Now, reader, have you never seen
An awkward, country lad, and green,
Raised like this root, we have in hand,
In some lone spot on mountain land,
Or by some brook, whose brawlings never
Have magnified it to a river?—
Yes, you have seen, if you were looking,
This raw one go abroad for cooking.
His innate worth becoming known,
Transformed somewhat you 've seen him grown;
The outer man brushed up a little,
But furbished bright the native mettle;
His story told, his praises sung,
Himself the theme of every tongue;
In halls of lore and halls of state
He 's fed the learned and the great;
At every board a welcome guest,—
And when he 's gone, like all the rest,
How often is he brought to mind,
A very jewel of his kind!

Well, to proceed:—here is another,
But totally unlike his brother.
Despite his size and aspect good,
This one is scarcely fit for food.
Great tales were told about his birth
Far o'er the sea in foreign earth:
A farmer prince, somewhere, 't was said,
Some sage experiments had made
Upon the root of which I sing,
And at the last produced this thing;
And, thereupon, to give it fame,
Baptized it with his princely name.
The story took; the roots were sold;
E'en Yankee farmers, shrewd and old,
Astonished at their wondrous yield,
Set Rohans growing in their field.

Dear reader, when you chance to see
A boaster of his pedigree,
Thinking for grandeur's lord to pass,
When you can see he 's but an ass;
Whene'er you see a preference given
O'er native yeast to foreign leaven;
Whene'er a humbug buzzes round
And fain would light upon your ground,
Hit it with Rohans on the sconce,
And that will settle it at once.

Last, see these little dirty pellets,
Scarcely the size of musket bullets.
In vain to say that weeds o'ertopp'd them,
Or summer's drouth from growing stopp'd them,
Or, were they tended with more care,
They might have been potatoes rare.—
Such logic 's vain; there ever will
Be small potatoes in the hill.

Reader, again, whene'er you find
Men of great words and little mind,
Whose dim ideas chime and jingle
Like small potatoes on a shingle;
Whene'er you see a lazy fellow,
Not wholly soft, but partly mellow,
Who for a time foregoes his ration
Yet boasts his grog-shop graduation;
Recounts his drunken frolies rare,
And thinks that sober people are
For these, and for reform, his debtors,
And he a Cicero in letters;—
Whene'er you see a Miller wise
Who grinds out scripture prophecies,
And sifts out, as he would the bran,
What mortal never could, nor can;—
When you see saints, self-named, self-holy,
Expecting to ascend to glory,
When tenfold easier would soar
Your bardship in a cart and four;—
Whene'er you see an office-seeker
Acting the part of public teacher,
Condemning in rhetoric treasures
The other party's ways and measures;
Showing such evils were because
You did not let him make the laws;—
Whene'er you see a zealot wise
Mangling God's word before your eyes;
One who mistook an owlet's screech
For call from Zion's Head to preach;—
Fair-weather sailors when you spy;
Brave fellows if no storm be nigh,
When e'en make mention of a gale,
And, lo! the tars have lowered sail;—
Blank-cartridge soldiers, none the bolder
For the bright gun upon their shoulder;
And generals full of martial bluster
To face the awful scenes of—muster;—
Whenever, I again repeat,
With all this sort of thing you meet,
The fittest emblem you may find
Potatoes of the smallest kind.