They ask but our Delight－
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.
(F.908/J.868)
[1] They, Delight:: potatoes need less care than other food plants.
[2] Darlings:: potatoes are friendly to the soil. Darlings of the Soil:: Irish farmers or emigrants are hard workers.
[3] all their Countenance:: their full support.
[4] smile:: a drink, whiskey (OED smile n. 2, 1839). penurious smile:: the whiskey made from potatoes (a penurious whiskey), and a penurious smile from a potato face.
POTATO POTEEN. ... a quantity of whiskey made from potatoes. There is nothing very cheerful or inebriating in the notion of a potato, but it seems that it is possible to get drunk upon that very common-place and every-day esculent. ─ Punch, Volumes 22-23 (1852)
"de potato-face－Me no tink it vort my while to notice you" ─ Bell's British theatre (1784)
Then we have twenty or thirty poor ragged Irish emigrants, with good-natured potato-faces, and strong arms and willing hearts. ─ Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1839)
One of my agricultural friends, who though far from having a potato face, may notwithstanding, from the amplitude of his forehead, and the obvious intellectuality of his countenance, be a good primd facie evidence (as the lawyers say) in favour of his theory, attributes the unproductiveness of the potato sets during the last two years to the want of heat in the latter seasons, and the consequent immaturity of the potato crops. ─ Irish Farmer's and Gardener's Magazine, Volume I (1834)