Page:The Hasty-Pudding.djvu/20

12 Where the strong labial muscles must embrace, The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space. With ease to enter and discharge the freight, A bowl less concave but still more dilate, Becomes the pudding best.The shape, the size, A secret rests unknown to vulgar eyes; Experienc’d feeders can alone impart A rule so much above the lore of art. These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried, With just precision could the point decide, Tho’ not in song; the muse but poorly shines In cones and cubes, and geometric lines. Yet the true form, as near as she can tell, Is that small section of a goose egg-shell, Which in two equal portions shall divide The distance from the centre to the side.


 * Fear not to slaver; ’tis no deadly sin,

Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin Suspend the ready napkin; or, like me, Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee; Just in the zenith your wise head project, Your full spoon, rising in a line direct, Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall, The wide-mouth’d bowl will surely catch them all.