May the Beer of the Irish Be with You!

From our food editor Verla Burrell-Bordelon:

Happy St. Patrick's Day, the day when everyone is Irish!  Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) was known to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a beer in each hand, and he'd wish fellow merrymakers a variant of a well-known proverb:  "May the beer of the Irish be with you!"

Today, may the luck -- and the beer -- of the Irish be with you -- and may you enjoy Emmett Lee Dickinson's now-classic poem "To make me Irish it takes a shamrock and one beer" (below on the left).  Dickinson's poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:
 
To make me Irish it takes a shamrock
​     and one beer,
One shamrock, and more beer,
And revelry.
The revelry alone will do,
With a few beers.

By Emily Dickinson:
 
To make a prairie it takes a clover
​     and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.