The Inn Kitchen - Prose Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB C A D EF| Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn | A |
| FALSTAFF | B |
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| During a journey that I once made through the Netherlands I had arrived one evening at the Pomme d'Or the principal inn of a small Flemish village It was after the hour of the table d'hote so that I was obliged to make a solitary supper from the relics of its ampler board The weather was chilly I was seated alone in one end of a great gloomy dining room and my repast being over I had the prospect before me of a long dull evening without any visible means of enlivening it I summoned mine host and requested something to read he brought me the whole literary stock of his household a Dutch family Bible an almanac in the same language and a number of old Paris newspapers As I sat dozing over one of the latter reading old news and stale criticisms my ear was now and then struck with bursts of laughter which seemed to proceed from the kitchen Every one that has travelled on the Continent must know how favorite a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the middle and inferior order of travellers particularly in that equivocal kind of weather when a fire becomes agreeable toward evening I threw aside the newspaper and explored my way to the kitchen to take a peep at the group that appeared to be so merry It was composed partly of travellers who had arrived some hours before in a diligence and partly of the usual attendants and hangers on of inns They were seated round a great burnished stove that might have been mistaken for an altar at which they were worshipping It was covered with various kitchen vessels of resplendent brightness among which steamed and hissed a huge copper tea kettle A large lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group bringing out many odd features in strong relief Its yellow rays partially illumined the spacious kitchen dying duskily away into remote corners except where they settled in mellow radiance on the broad side of a flitch of bacon or were reflected back from well scoured utensils that gleamed from the midst of obscurity A strapping Flemish lass with long golden pendants in her ears and a necklace with a golden heart suspended to it was the presiding priestess of the temple | C |
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| Many of the company were furnished with pipes and most of them with some kind of evening potation I found their mirth was occasioned by anecdotes which a little swarthy Frenchman with a dry weazen face and large whiskers was giving of his love adventures at the end of each of which there was one of those bursts of honest unceremonious laughter in which a man indulges in that temple of true liberty an inn | A |
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| As I had no better mode of getting through a tedious blustering evening I took my seat near the stove and listened to a variety of travellers' tales some very extravagant and most very dull All of them however have faded from my treacherous memory except one which I will endeavor to relate I fear however it derived its chief zest from the manner in which it was told and the peculiar air and appearance of the narrator He was a corpulent old Swiss who had the look of a veteran traveller He was dressed in a tarnished green travelling jacket with a broad belt round his waist and a pair of overalls with buttons from the hips to the ankles He was of a full rubicund countenance with a double chin aquiline nose and a pleasant twinkling eye His hair was light and curled from under an old green velvet travelling cap stuck on one side of his head He was interrupted more than once by the arrival of guests or the remarks of his auditors and paused now and then to replenish his pipe at which times he had generally a roguish leer and a sly joke for the buxom kitchen maid | D |
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| I wish my readers could imagine the old fellow lolling in a huge arm chair one arm a kimbo the other holding a curiously twisted tobacco pipe formed of genuine cume de mer decorated with silver chain and silken tassel his head cocked on one side and a whimsical cut of the eye occasionally as he related the following story | E |
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Washington Irving
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