Apple-Pie And Cheese

Full many a sinful notion

  Conceived of foreign powers

Has come across the ocean

  To harm this land of ours;

And heresies called fashions

  Have modesty effaced,

And baleful, morbid passions

  Corrupt our native taste.

O tempora! O mores!

  What profanations these

That seek to dim the glories

  Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education

  Enables me to stand

Against the vile temptation

  Held out on every hand;

Eschewing all the tittles

  With vanity replete,

I'm loyal to the victuals

  Our grandsires used to eat!

I'm glad I've got three willing boys

  To hang around and tease

Their mother for the filling joys

  Of apple-pie and cheese!

Your flavored creams and ices

  And your dainty angel-food

Are mighty fine devices

  To regale the dainty dude;

Your terrapin and oysters,

  With wine to wash 'em down,

Are just the thing for roisters

  When painting of the town;

No flippant, sugared notion

  Shall

my

appetite appease,

Or bate my soul's devotion

  To apple-pie and cheese!

The pie my Julia makes me

  (God bless her Yankee ways!)

On memory's pinions takes me

  To dear Green Mountain days;

And seems like I see Mother

  Lean on the window-sill,

A-handin' me and brother

  What she knows 'll keep us still;

And these feelings are so grateful,

  Says I, "Julia, if you please,

I'll take another plateful

  Of that apple-pie and cheese!"

And cheese! No alien it, sir,

  That's brought across the sea,—

No Dutch antique, nor Switzer,

  Nor glutinous de Brie;

There's nothing I abhor so

  As mawmets of this ilk—

Give

me

the harmless morceau

  That's made of true-blue milk!

No matter what conditions

  Dyspeptic come to feaze,

The best of all physicians

  Is apple-pie and cheese!

Though ribalds may decry 'em,

  For these twin boons we stand,

Partaking thrice per diem

  Of their fullness out of hand;

No enervating fashion

  Shall cheat us of our right

To gratify our passion

  With a mouthful at a bite!

We'll cut it square or bias,

  Or any way we please,

And faith shall justify us

  When we carve our pie and cheese!

De gustibus, 't is stated,

  Non disputandum est.

Which meaneth, when translated,

  That all is for the best.

So let the foolish choose 'em

  The vapid sweets of sin,

I will not disabuse 'em

  Of the heresy they're in;

But I, when I undress me

  Each night, upon my knees

Will ask the Lord to bless me

  With apple-pie and cheese!