Apple-Pie And Cheese

Full many a sinful notion  Conceived of foreign

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

That seek to dim the glories  Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education  Enables me to

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

Their mother for the filling joys  Of apple-pie and cheese!

Your flavored creams and ices  And your dainty

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

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

Will ask the Lord to bless me  With apple-pie and cheese!