Full many a sinful notion
 Conceived of foreign powers
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 these
That seek to dim the glories
 Of apple-pie and cheese!

I'm glad my education
 Enables me to stand
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 tease
Their mother for the filling joys
 Of apple-pie and cheese!

Your flavored creams and ices
 And your dainty angel-food
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 fulness out of hand;
No enervating fashion
 Shall cheat us of our right
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 knees
Will ask the Lord to bless me
 With apple-pie and cheese!