One morning was heard a mighty clamoring, With sounds of sawing and planing and hammering. The painters, forsaking their easels and pallets, Came to look on, or assist in the labor; The joiners were there with their chisels and mallets; Trades of all grades, every man with his neighbor; The carpenters, coopers, And stout iron-hoopers, Erecting a press for the thing to be done in, A tub big enough to put ton after ton in, And gutters for rivers of liquid to run in. March was the month the work was begun in,-- If that could be work they saw nothing but fun in; 'Twas finished in April, and long before May Everything was prepared for the curd and the whey. Then the bells were set ringing-- The milking began; All over the land went the dairy-maids singing; Boy and man, Cart, pail, and can, And peasant girls, each in her pretty dress, From highway and by-way all round, came bringing, Morning and evening, the milk to the press. Then it took seven wise-heads together to guess Just how much rennet, no more and no less, Should be added, to curdle and thicken the mess. So, having been properly warmed and stirred, The cheese was set; and now, at a word, Ten strong men fell to cutting the curd. Some whey was reheated; The cutting repeated; Each part of the process most carefully treated, For fear they might find, when the whole was completed, Their plan had by some mischance been defeated. Now the weavers come bringing the web they were spinning, A cloth for the curd, of the stoutest of linen. The ten men attack it, And tumble and pack it Within the vast vat in its dripping gray jacket; And the press is set going with clatter and racket. The great screw descends, as the long levers play, And the curd, like some crushed living creature, gives way; It sighs in its troubles-- The pressure redoubles! It mutters and sputters, And hisses and bubbles, While down the deep gutters, From every pore spirted, rush torrents of whey. The cheese was pressed, and turned, and cured; And so was made, as I am assured, The rich-odored, great-girdled Emperor Of all the cheeses that ever were. Then, everything ready, what should they have else, In starting His Majesty on his travels, But a great procession up and down Through the streets of the quaint old town?