Grinder, who serenely grindest

At my door the Hundredth Psalm,
Till thou ultimately findest

Pence in thy unwashen palm:

Grinder, jocund-hearted Grinder,

Near whom Barbary's nimble son,
Poised with skill upon his hinder

Paws, accepts the proffered bun:

Dearly do I love thy grinding;

Joy to meet thee on thy road
Where thou prowlest through the blinding

Dust with that stupendous load,

'Neath the baleful star of Sirius,

When the postmen slowlier jog,
And the ox becomes delirious,

And the muzzle decks the dog.

Tell me by what art thou bindest

On thy feet those ancient shoon:
Tell me, Grinder, if thou grindest

Always, always out of tune.

Tell me if, as thou art buckling

On thy straps with eager claws,
Thou forecastest, inly chuckling,

All the rage that thou wilt cause.

Tell me if at all thou mindest

When folks flee, as if on wings,
From thee as at ease thou grindest:

Tell me fifty thousand things.

Grinder, gentle-hearted Grinder!

Ruffians who led evil lives,
Soothed by thy sweet strains, are kinder

To their bullocks and their wives:

Children, when they see thy supple

Form approach, are out like shots;
Half-a-bar sets several couple

Waltzing in convenient spots;

Not with clumsy Jacks or Georges:

Unprofaned by grasp of man
Maidens speed those simple orgies,

Betsey Jane with Betsey Ann.

As they love thee in St. Giles's

Thou art loved in Grosvenor Square:
None of those engaging smiles is

Unreciprocated there.

Often, ere yet thou hast hammer'd

Through thy four delicious airs,
Coins are flung thee by enamour'd

Housemaids upon area stairs:

E'en the ambrosial-whisker'd flunkey

Eyes thy boots and thine unkempt
Beard and melancholy monkey

More in pity than contempt.

Far from England, in the sunny

South, where Anio leaps in foam,
Thou wast rear'd, till lack of money

Drew thee from thy vineclad home:

And thy mate, the sinewy Jocko,

From Brazil or Afric came,
Land of simoom and sirocco –

And he seems extremely tame.

There he quaff'd the undefilèd

Spring, or hung with apelike glee,
By his teeth or tail or eyelid,

To the slippery mango-tree:

There he woo'd and won a dusky

Bride, of instincts like his own;
Talk'd of love till he was husky

In a tongue to us unknown:

Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage

The potato ground, or cut
Down the unsuspecting savage

With the well-aim'd cocoa-nut: –

Till the miscreant Stranger tore him

Screaming from his blue-faced fair;
And they flung strange raiment o'er him,

Raiment which he could not bear:

Sever'd from the pure embraces

Of his children and his spouse,
He must ride fantastic races

Mounted on reluctant sows:

But the heart of wistful Jocko

Still was with his ancient flame
In the nutgroves of Morocco;

Or if not it's all the same.

Grinder, winsome grinsome Grinder!

They who see thee and whose soul
Melts not at thy charms, are blinder

Than a trebly-bandaged mole:

They to whom thy curt (yet clever)

Talk, thy music and thine ape,
Seem not to be joys for ever,

Are but brutes in human shape.

'Tis not that thy mien is stately,

'Tis not that thy tones are soft;
'Tis not that I care so greatly

For the same thing play'd so oft:

But I've heard mankind abuse thee;

And perhaps it's rather strange,
But I thought that I would choose thee

For encomium, as a change.