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Poetry for children

Chapter 31: THE COFFEE SLIPS
By Charles Lamb
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British LiteratureChildren & Young Adult ReadingPoetry

About This Book

This collection assembles short, simple poems and dialogues written for young readers, many by Mary with contributions from Charles, presenting playful scenes of childhood, sibling banter, moral fables, religious reflections, and observations of nature and daily life. Pieces range from light verse about losing baby teeth, toys, and first sights of green fields to didactic fables and tender portraits of family affection, occasionally adapting biblical or anecdotal material. Language is plain and rhythmic, with occasional ballads and moral lessons aimed at cultivating kindness, cleanliness, courage, and sympathy while celebrating imagination and domestic intimacy.

THE
COFFEE SLIPS

XXIX

Whene’er I fragrant coffee drink
I on the generous Frenchman think,
Whose noble perseverance bore
The tree to Martinico’s shore.
While yet her colony was new,
Her island products but a few,
Two shoots from off a coffee-tree
He carried with him o’er the sea.
Each little tender coffee-slip
He waters daily in the ship;
And as he tends his embryo trees
Feels he is raising ’midst the seas
Coffee groves, whose ample shade
Shall screen the dark Creolian maid.
But soon, alas! his darling pleasure
In watching this his precious treasure,

Is like to fade; for water fails
On board the ship in which he sails.
Now all the reservoirs are shut,
The crew on short allowance put;
So small a drop is each man’s share
Few leavings you may think there are
To water these poor coffee plants!
But he supplies their gasping wants;
Ev’n from his own dry parched lips
He spares it for his coffee-slips.
Water he gives his nurslings first
Ere he allays his own deep thirst;
Lest if he first the water sip
He bear too far his eager lip.
He sees them droop for want of more;
Yet when they reach the destined shore,
With pride the heroic gardener sees
A living sap still in his trees.
The islanders his praise resound!
Coffee plantations rise around;
And Martinico loads her ships
With produce from those dear-saved slips.B

B The name of this man was Desclieux, and the story is to be found in the Abbé Raynal’s History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies.