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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pipe and Pouch, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Pipe and Pouch
+ The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2005 [EBook #14887]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIPE AND POUCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Newman, William Flis, and the PG Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (Smoker)]
+
+
+
+
+PIPE AND POUCH
+
+THE
+
+SMOKER'S OWN BOOK OF POETRY
+
+COMPILED BY
+
+JOSEPH KNIGHT
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BOSTON
+
+JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY
+
+1895
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+_COPYRIGHT, 1894,_
+
+BY JOSEPH KNIGHT.
+
+UNIVERSITY PRESS:
+
+JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+DEDICATED
+
+TO MY FRIEND AND FELLOW-SMOKER,
+
+WALTER MONTGOMERY JACKSON.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This is an age of anthologies. Collections of poetry covering a wide
+range of subjects have appeared of late, and seem to have met with
+favor and approval. Not to the busy man only, but to the student of
+literature such compilations are of value. It is sometimes objected
+that they tend to discourage wide reading and original research; but
+the overwhelming flood of books would seem to make them a necessity.
+Unless one has the rare gift of being able to sprint through a book,
+as Andrew Lang says Mr. Gladstone does, it is surely well to make
+use of the labors of the industrious compiler. Such collections are
+often the result of wide reading and patient labor. Frequently the
+larger part is made up of single poems, the happy and perhaps only
+inspiration of the writer, gleaned from the poet's corner of the
+newspaper or the pages of a magazine. This is specially true of the
+present compilation, the first on the subject aiming at anything like
+completeness. Brief collections of prose and poetry combined have
+already been published; but so much of value has been omitted that
+there seemed to be room for a better book. A vast amount has been
+written in praise of tobacco, much of it commonplace or lacking in
+poetic quality. While some of the verse here gathered is an obvious
+echo, or passes into unmistakable parody, it has been the aim of
+the compiler to maintain, as far as possible, a high standard and
+include only the best. From the days of Raleigh to the present
+time, literature abounds in allusions to tobacco. The Elizabethan
+writers constantly refer to it, often in praise though sometimes
+in condemnation. The incoming of the "Indian weed" created a great
+furore, and scarcely any other of the New World discoveries was talked
+about so much. Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Fletcher, Spenser, Dekker, and
+many other of the poets and dramatists of the time, make frequent
+reference to it; and no doubt at the Mermaid tavern, pipes and tobacco
+found a place beside the sack and ale. Singular to say, Shakespeare
+makes no reference to it; and only once in his essay "Of Plantations,"
+as far as the compiler has been able to discover, does Bacon speak
+of it. Shakespeare's silence has been explained on the theory that
+he could not introduce any reference to the newly discovered plant
+without anachronism; but he did not often let a little thing of this
+kind stand in his way. It has been suggested, on the other hand, that
+he avoided all reference to it out of deference to King James I.,
+who wrote the famous "Counterblast." Whichever theory is correct,
+the fact remains, and it may be an interesting contribution to the
+Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. Queen Elizabeth never showed any
+hostility to tobacco; but her successors, James I. and the two
+Charleses, and Cromwell were its bitter opponents. Notwithstanding
+its enemies, who just as fiercely opposed the introduction of tea
+and coffee, its use spread over Europe and the world, and prince
+and peasant alike yielded to its mild but irresistible sway. Poets
+and philosophers drew solace and inspiration from the pipe. Milton,
+Addison, Fielding, Hobbes, and Newton were all smokers. It is said
+Newton was smoking under a tree in his garden when the historic apple
+fell. Scott, Campbell, Byron, Hood, and Lamb all smoked, and Carlyle
+and Tennyson were rarely without a pipe in their mouths. The great
+novelists, Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer were famous smokers; and so
+were the great soldiers, Napoleon, Bluecher, and Grant. While nearly
+all the poems here gathered together were written, and perhaps could
+only have been written, by smokers, several among the best are the
+work of authors who never use the weed,--one by a man, two or three
+by women. Among the more recent writers there has been no more devoted
+smoker than Mr. Lowell, as his recently published letters testify.
+Three of the most delightful poems in praise of smoking are his, and
+with Mr. Aldrich's charming "Latakia" are the gems of the collection.
+The compiler desires to express his grateful acknowledgments to
+friends who have permitted him to use their work and have otherwise
+aided him from time to time; and to the many unknown authors whose
+poems are here gathered, and whom it was quite impossible to reach;
+and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, Harper & Brothers, The
+Bowen-Merrill Company, and the publishers of "Outlook," for their
+gracious permission to include copyrighted poems.
+
+J.K.
+
+BOSTON, July, 1894.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A.
+
+ PAGE
+ Acrostic _J.H._ 44
+ Ad Nicotina _E.N.S._ 118
+ Another Match _Cope's Tobacco Plant_ 45
+ Ashes _De Witt Sterry_ 47
+
+B.
+
+ Bachelor's Invocation, A _Pall Mall Gazette_ 182
+ Bachelor's Views, A _Tom Hall_ 177
+ Bachelor's Soliloquy _Cigar and Tobacco World_ 95
+ Ballad of the Pipe, The _Hermann Rave_ 69
+ Ballade of Tobacco, The _Brander Matthews_ 54
+ Betrothed, The _Rudyard Kipling_ 108
+ Brief Puff of Smoke, A _Selim_ 19
+
+C.
+
+ Cannon Song _H.P. Peck_ 85
+ Chibouque _Francis S. Saltus_ 173
+ Choosing a wife by a Pipe of Tobacco _Gentleman's Magazine_
+ 48
+ Cigar, The _Thomas Hood_ 153
+ Cigarette Rings _J. Ashby-Sterry_ 147
+ Cigars and Beer _George Arnold_ 166
+ Clouds _Bauernfeld_ 52
+ Confession of a Cigar Smoker _Anon._ 158
+
+D.
+
+ Discovery of Tobacco _Cigar and Tobacco World_ 64
+ Dreamer's Pipe, The _New Orleans Times Democrat_ 96
+ Duet, The _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_ 174
+
+E.
+
+ Edifying Reflections of a Tobacco Smoker _Translated from the
+ German_ 58
+ Effusion by a Cigar Smoker _Horace Smith_ 167
+ Encomium on Tobacco, An _Anon._ 36
+ Epitaph _Anon._ 17
+
+F.
+
+ Farewell to Tobacco, A _Charles Lamb_ 100
+ Farmer's Pipe, The _George Cooper_ 7
+ Forsaken of all comforts _Sir Robert Ayton_ 140
+ Free Puff, A _Arthur Irving Gray_ 121
+ Friend of my youth _Anon._ 164
+
+G.
+
+ Geordie to his Tobacco Pipe _George S. Phillips_ 25
+ Glass is Good, A _John O'Keefe_ 94
+ Good Cigar, A _Norris Bull_ 93
+
+H.
+
+ Happy Smoking Ground, The _Richard Le Gallienne_ 145
+ Her Brother's Cigarette _Anon._ 79
+ He Respondeth _Life_ 55
+ How it Once Was _New York Sun_ 78
+
+I.
+
+ If I were King _W.E. Henley_ 171
+ I like Cigars _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_ 121
+ In Favor of Tobacco _Samuel Rowlands_ 52
+ Ingin Summer _Eva Wilder McGlasson_ 57
+ Inscription for a Tobacco Jar _Cope's Tobacco Plant_ 12
+ In Rotten Row _W.E. Henley_ 174
+ In the ol' Tobacker Patch _S.Q. Lapius_ 80
+ In the smoke of my dear cigarito _Camilla K. von K._ 92
+ Invocation to Tobacco _Henry James Mellen_ 31
+ In wreaths of Smoke _Frank Newton Holman_ 46
+ It may be Weeds _Anon._ 23
+
+K.
+
+ "Keats took Snuff" _The Globe_ 68
+ Knickerbocker _Austin Dobson_ 63
+
+L.
+
+ Last Pipe, The _London Spectator_ 12
+ Latakia _T.B. Aldrich_ 142
+ Latest Comfort, The _F.W. Littleton Hay_ 157
+ Loss, A _Judy_ 128
+ Lost Lotus, The _Anon._ 60
+
+M.
+
+ Maecenas Bids his Friend to Dine _Anon._ 81
+ Meerschaum _Wrongfellow_ 119
+ Motto for a Tobacco Jar _Anon._ 12
+ My After-Dinner Cloud _Henry S. Leigh_ 143
+ My Cigar _Arthur W. Gundry_ 2
+ My Cigarette _Richard Barnard_ 52
+ My Cigarette _Charles F. Lummis_ 113
+ My Cigarette _Tom Hall_ 176
+ My Friendly Pipe _Detroit Tribune_ 94
+ My Little Brown Pipe _Amelia E. Barr_ 138
+ My Meerschaum Pipe _Johnson M. Mundy_ 123
+ My Meerschaums _Charles F. Lummis_ 131
+ My Pipe _German Smoking Song_ 7
+ My Pipe and I _Elton J. Buckley_ 106
+ My Three Loves _Henry S. Leigh_ 50
+
+O.
+
+ Ode of Thanks, A _James Russell Lowell_ 33
+ Ode to My Pipe _Andrew Wynter_ 14
+ Ode to Tobacco _Daniel Webster_ 95
+ Ode to Tobacco _C.S. Calverly_ 134
+ Old Clay Pipe, The _A.B. Van Fleet_ 71
+ Old Pipe of Mine _John J. Gormley_ 83
+ Old Sweetheart of Mine, An _James Whitcomb Riley_ 165
+ On a Broken Pipe _Anon._ 112
+ On a Tobacco Jar _Bernard Barker_ 38
+ On Receipt of a Rare Pipe _W.H.B._ 135
+
+P.
+
+ Patriotic Smoker's Lament _St. James Gazette_ 41
+ Pernicious Weed _William Cowper_ 73
+ Pipe and Tobacco _German Folk Song_ 156
+ Pipe Critic, The _Walter Littlefield_ 115
+ Pipe of Tobacco, A _John Usher_ 15
+ Pipe of Tobacco, A _Henry Fielding_ 163
+ Pipes and Beer _Edgar Fawcett_ 178
+ Pipe you make Yourself, The _Henry E. Brown_ 172
+ Poet's Pipe, The _Charles Baudelaire_ 2
+ Pot and a Pipe of Tobacco, A _Universal Songster_ 169
+
+S.
+
+ Scent of a good Cigar, The _Kate A. Carrington_ 61
+ Seasonable Sweets _C._ 23
+ Sic Transit _W.B. Anderson_ 108
+ Sir Walter Raleigh! name of worth _Anon._ 158
+ Smoke and Chess _Samuel W. Duffield_ 10
+ Smoke is the Food of Lovers _Jacob Cats_ 51
+ Smoker's Reverie, The _Anon._ 17
+ Smoker's Calendar, The _Anon._ 159
+ Smoke Traveller, The _Irving Browne_ #74
+ Smoking Away _Francis Miles Finch_ 98
+ Smoking Song _Anon._ 77
+ Smoking Spiritualized _Ralph Erskine_ 148
+ Song of the Smoke-Wreaths _L.T.A._ 9
+ Song without a Name, A _W. Lloyd_ 117
+ Sublime Tobacco _Lord Byron_ 97
+ Sweet Smoking Pipe _Anon._ 146
+ Symphony in Smoke, A _Harper's Bazaar_ 22
+
+T.
+
+ Those Ashes _R.K. Munkittrick_ 130
+ Titlepage Dedication _Anon._ 44
+ To an Old Pipe _De Witt Sterry_ 43
+ To a Pipe of Tobacco _Gentleman's Magazine_ 91
+ Tobacco _George Wither_ 86
+ Tobacco _Thomas Jones_ 151
+ Tobacco is an Indian Weed _From "Pills to Purge Melancholy"_
+ 150
+ Tobacco, some say _Anon._ 164
+ To C.F. Bradford _James Russell Lowell_ 5
+ To My Cigar _Charles Sprague_ 62
+ To My Cigar _Friedrich Marc_ 165
+ To My Meerschaum _P.D.R._ 82
+ Too Great a Sacrifice _Anon._ 90
+ To see her Pipe Awry _C.F._ 55
+ To the Rev. Mr. Newton _William Cowper_ 126
+ To the Tobacco Pipe _The Meteor, London_ 39
+ True Leucothoe, The _Anon._ 129
+ 'Twas off the Blue Canaries _Joseph Warren Fabens_ 140
+ Two other Hearts _London Tobacco_ 73
+
+V.
+
+ Valentine, A _Anon._ 113
+ Virginia's kingly Plant _Anon._ 87
+ Virginia Tobacco _Stanley Gregson_ 31
+
+W.
+
+ Warning, A _Arthur Lovell_ 124
+ What I Like _H.L._ 131
+ Winter Evening Hymn to My Fire, A _James Russell Lowell_
+ 105
+ With Pipe and Book _Richard Le Gallienne_ 1
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+PIPE AND POUCH
+
+ * * * * *
+
+WITH PIPE AND BOOK.
+
+
+ With Pipe and Book at close of day,
+ Oh, what is sweeter, mortal, say?
+ It matters not what book on knee,
+ Old Izaak or the Odyssey,
+ It matters not meerschaum or clay.
+
+ And though one's eyes will dream astray,
+ And lips forget to sue or sway,
+ It is "enough to merely be,"
+ With Pipe and Book.
+
+ What though our modern skies be gray,
+ As bards aver, I will not pray
+ For "soothing Death" to succor me,
+ But ask this much, O Fate, of thee,
+ A little longer yet to stay
+ With Pipe and Book.
+
+RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.
+
+
+
+
+A POET'S PIPE.
+
+_FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE._
+
+
+ A poet's pipe am I,
+ And my Abyssinian tint
+ Is an unmistakable hint
+ That he lays me not often by.
+ When his soul is with grief o'erworn
+ I smoke like the cottage where
+ They are cooking the evening fare
+ For the laborer's return.
+
+ I enfold and cradle his soul
+ In the vapors moving and blue
+ That mount from my fiery mouth;
+ And there is power in my bowl
+ To charm his spirit and soothe,
+ And heal his weariness too.
+
+RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD.
+
+
+
+
+MY CIGAR.
+
+
+ In spite of my physician, who is, _entre nous_, a fogy,
+ And for every little pleasure has some pathologic bogy,
+ Who will bear with no small vices, and grows dismally prophetic
+ If I wander from the weary way of virtue dietetic;
+
+ In spite of dire forewarnings that my brains will all be scattered,
+ My memory extinguished, and my nervous system shattered,
+ That my hand will take to trembling, and my heart begin to flutter,
+ My digestion turn a rebel to my very bread and butter;
+
+ As I puff this mild Havana, and its ashes slowly lengthen,
+ I feel my courage gather and my resolution strengthen:
+ I will smoke, and I will praise you, my cigar, and I will light you
+ With tobacco-phobic pamphlets by the learned prigs who fight you!
+
+ Let him who has a mistress to her eyebrow write a sonnet,
+ Let the lover of a lily pen a languid ode upon it;
+ In such sentimental subjects I'm a Philistine and cynic,
+ And prefer the inspiration drawn from sources nicotinic.
+
+ So I sing of you, dear product of (I trust you are) Havana,
+ And if there's any question as to how my verses scan, a
+ Reason is my shyness in the Muses' aid invoking,
+ As, like other ancient maidens, they perchance object to smoking.
+
+ I have learnt with you the wisdom of contemplative quiescence,
+ While the world is in a ferment of unmeaning effervescence,
+ That its jar and rush and riot bring no good one-half so sterling
+ As your fleecy clouds of fragrance that are now about me curling.
+
+ So, let stocks go up or downward, and let politicians wrangle,
+ Let the parsons and philosophers grope in a wordy tangle,
+ Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars,
+ Be millionnaires or magnates, or senators or scholars.
+
+ I will puff my mild Havana, and I quietly will query,
+ Whether, when the strife is over, and the combatants are weary,
+ Their gains will be more brilliant than its faint expiring flashes,
+ Or more solid than this panful of its dead and sober ashes.
+
+ARTHUR W. GUNDRY.
+
+
+
+
+TO C.F. BRADFORD.
+
+_ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE._
+
+
+ The pipe came safe, and welcome, too,
+ As anything must be from you;
+ A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light
+ As she the girls called Amphitrite.
+ Mixture divine of foam and clay,
+ From both it stole the best away:
+ Its foam is such as crowns the glow
+ Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot;
+ Its clay is but congested lymph
+ Jove chose to make some choicer nymph;
+ And here combined,--why, this must be
+ The birth of some enchanted sea,
+ Shaped to immortal form, the type
+ And very Venus of a pipe.
+
+ When high I heap it with the weed
+ From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed
+ Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore
+ And cast upon Virginia's shore,
+ I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl
+ And wise alembic of thy soul,
+ With herbs far-sought that shall distil,
+ Not fumes to slacken thought and will,
+ But bracing essences that nerve
+ To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.
+
+ When curls the smoke in eddies soft,
+ And hangs a shifting dream aloft,
+ That gives and takes, though chance-designed,
+ The impress of the dreamer's mind,
+ I'll think,--So let the vapors bred
+ By passion, in the heart or head,
+ Pass off and upward into space,
+ Waving farewells of tenderest grace,
+ Remembered in some happier time,
+ To blend their beauty with my rhyme.
+
+ While slowly o'er its candid bowl
+ The color deepens (as the soul
+ That burns in mortals leaves its trace
+ Of bale or beauty on the face),
+ I'll think,--So let the essence rare
+ Of years consuming make me fair;
+ So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse,
+ Steep me in some narcotic juice;
+ And if my soul must part with all
+ That whiteness which we greenness call,
+ Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown,
+ And make me beautifully brown!
+
+ Dream-forger, I refill thy cup
+ With reverie's wasteful pittance up,
+ And while the fire burns slow away,
+ Hiding itself in ashes gray,
+ I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats,
+ Compelled to spare his wasting heats,
+ When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about,
+ And my head's gray with fires burnt out,
+ While stays one spark to light the eye,
+ With the last flash of memory,
+ 'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B.,
+ Who sent my favorite pipe to me.
+
+JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+MY PIPE.
+
+
+ When love grows cool, thy fire still warms me;
+ When friends are fled, thy presence charms me.
+ If thou art full, though purse be bare,
+ I smoke, and cast away all care!
+
+_German Smoking Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE FARMER'S PIPE.
+
+
+ Make a picture, dreamy smoke,
+ In my still and cosey room;
+ From the fading past evoke
+ Forms that breathe of summer's bloom.
+
+ Bashful Will and rosy Nell--
+ Ah, I watch them now at play
+ By the mossy wayside well
+ As I did twelve years to-day.
+
+ We were younger then, my pipe:
+ You are dingy now and worn;
+ And my fruit is more than ripe,
+ And my fields are brown and shorn.
+
+ Nell has merry eyes of blue,
+ And is timid, pure, and mild;
+ Will is fair and brave and true,
+ And a neighboring farmer's child.
+
+ Little maid is busy, too,
+ Making rare, fictitious pies,
+ Just as any wife would do,
+ Looking, meanwhile, wondrous wise.
+
+ Drawing water from the well,
+ Delving sand upon the hill,
+ Going here and there for Nell,--
+ That's her helpmate, willing Will.
+
+ Yonder, in the waning light,
+ Hand in hand the truants come,
+ Nell so fearful lest the night
+ Should fall around her far from home.
+
+ Fading, fading, skyward flies
+ This joy-picture you have limned;
+ Pipe of mine, the quiet skies
+ Of my life you leave undimmed.
+
+ Nell and Will are lovers now;
+ There they stray in dying light.
+ That's a kiss! Ah, well, somehow
+ Nell's no more afraid at night!
+
+GEORGE COOPER.
+
+
+
+
+SONG OF THE SMOKE-WREATHS.
+
+_SUNG TO THE SMOKERS._
+
+
+ Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
+ Not like mists that mask the sea,
+ Not like vapors round the fountains,--
+ Soft and clear and warm are we.
+
+ Hear the tempest, how its minions
+ Tear the clouds and heap the snows!
+ No storm-rage is in our pinions;
+ Who knows us, 'tis peace he knows.
+
+ Soaring from the burning censers,
+ Stealing forth through all the air,
+ Hovering as the mild dispensers
+ Over you of blisses rare,
+
+ Softly float we, softly blend we,
+ Tinted from the deep blue sky,
+ Scented from the myrrh-lands, bend we
+ Downward to you ere we die.
+
+ Ease we bring, and airy fancies,
+ Sober thoughts with visions gay,
+ Peace profound with daring glances
+ Through the clouds to endless day.
+
+ Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
+ Not like mists that mask the sea,
+ Not like vapors round the fountains,--
+ Soft and clear and warm are we.
+
+L.T.A., in _London Society_.
+
+
+
+
+SMOKE AND CHESS.
+
+
+ We were sitting at chess as the sun went down;
+ And he, from his meerschaum's glossy brown,
+ With a ring of smoke made his king a crown.
+
+ The cherry stem, with its amber tip,
+ Thoughtfully rested on his lip,
+ As the goblet's rim from which heroes sip.
+
+ And, looking out through the early green,
+ He called on his patron saint, I ween,--
+ That misty maiden, Saint Nicotine,--
+
+ While ever rested that crown so fair,
+ Poised in the warm and pulseless air,
+ On the carven chessman's ivory hair.
+
+ Dreamily wandered the game along,
+ Quietly moving at even-song,
+ While the striving kings stood firm and strong,
+
+ Until that one which of late was crowned
+ Flinched from a knight's determined bound,
+ And in sullen majesty left the ground,
+
+ Reeling back; and it came to pass
+ That, waiting to mutter no funeral mass,
+ A bishop had dealt him the _coup de grace_.
+
+ And so, as we sat, we reasoned still
+ Of fate and of fortune, of human will,
+ And what are the purposes men fulfil.
+
+ For we see at last, when the truth arrives,
+ The moves on the chess-board of our lives,--
+ That fields may be lost, though the king survives.
+
+ Not always he whom the world reveres
+ Merits its honor or wins its cheers,
+ Standing the best at the end of the years.
+
+ Not always he who has lost the fight
+ Rises again with the coming light,
+ Battles anew for his ancient right.
+
+SAMUEL W. DUFFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+INSCRIPTION FOR A TOBACCO JAR.
+
+
+ Keep me at hand; and as my fumes arise,
+ You'll find _a jar_ the gates of Paradise.
+
+_Copes Tobacco Plant._
+
+
+
+
+MOTTO FOR A TOBACCO JAR.
+
+
+ Come! don't refuse sweet Nicotina's aid,
+ But woo the goddess through a yard of clay;
+ And soon you'll own she is the fairest maid
+ To stifle pain, and drive old Care away.
+ Nor deem it waste; what though to ash she burns,
+ If for your outlay you get good returns!
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST PIPE.
+
+
+ When head is sick and brain doth swim,
+ And heavy hangs each unstrung limb,
+ 'Tis sweet through smoke-puffs, wreathing slow,
+ To watch the firelight flash or glow.
+ As each soft cloud floats up on high,
+ Some worry takes its wings to fly;
+ And Fancy dances with the flame,
+ Who lay so labor-crammed and lame;
+ While the spent Will, the slack Desire,
+ Re-kindle at the dying fire,
+ And burn to meet the morrow's sun
+ With all its day's work to be done.
+
+ The tedious tangle of the Law,
+ Your work ne'er done without some flaw;
+ Those ghastly streets that drive one mad,
+ With children joyless, elders sad,
+ Young men unmanly, girls going by
+ Bold-voiced, with eyes unmaidenly;
+ Christ dead two thousand years agone,
+ And kingdom come still all unwon;
+ Your own slack self that will not rise
+ Whole-hearted for the great emprise,--
+ Well, all these dark thoughts of the day
+ As thin smoke's shadow drift away.
+
+ And all those magic mists unclose,
+ And a girl's face amid them grows,--
+ The very look she's wont to wear,
+ The wild rose blossoms in her hair,
+ The wondrous depths of her pure eyes,
+ The maiden soul that 'neath them lies,
+ That fears to meet, yet will not fly,
+ Your stranger spirit drawing nigh.
+ What if our times seem sliding down?
+ She lives, creation's flower and crown.
+ What if your way seems dull and long?
+ Each tiny triumph over wrong,
+ Each effort up through sloth and fear,
+ And she and you are brought more near.
+ So rapping out these ashes light,--
+ "My pipe, you've served me well to-night."
+
+_London Spectator_.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO MY PIPE.
+
+
+ O Blessed pipe,
+ That now I clutch within my gripe,
+ What joy is in thy smooth, round bowl,
+ As black as coal!
+
+ So sweetly wed
+ To thy blanched, gradual thread,
+ Like Desdemona to the Moor,
+ Thou pleasure's core.
+
+ What woman's lip
+ Could ever give, like thy red tip,
+ Such unremitting store of bliss,
+ Or such a kiss?
+
+ Oh, let me toy,
+ Ixion-like, with cloudy joy;
+ Thy stem with a most gentle slant
+ I eye askant!
+
+ Unseen, unheard,
+ Thy dreamy nectar is transferred,
+ The while serenity astride
+ Thy neck doth ride.
+
+ A burly cloud
+ Doth now thy outward beauties shroud:
+ And now a film doth upward creep,
+ Cuddling the cheek.
+
+ And now a ring,
+ A mimic silver quoit, takes wing;
+ Another and another mount on high,
+ Then spread and die.
+
+ They say in story
+ That good men have a crown of glory;
+ O beautiful and good, behold
+ The crowns unfold!
+
+ How did they live?
+ What pleasure could the Old World give
+ That ancient miserable lot
+ When thou wert not?
+
+ Oh, woe betide!
+ My oldest, dearest friend hath died,--
+ Died in my hand quite unaware,
+ Oh, Baccy rare!
+
+ANDREW WYNTER.
+
+
+
+
+A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Let the toper regale in his tankard of ale,
+ Or with alcohol moisten his thrapple,
+ Only give me, I pray, a good pipe of soft clay,
+ Nicely tapered and thin in the stapple;
+ And I shall puff, puff, let who will say, "Enough!"
+ No luxury else I'm in lack o',
+ No malice I hoard 'gainst queen, prince, duke, or lord,
+ While I pull at my pipe of tobacco.
+
+ When I feel the hot strife of the battle of life,
+ And the prospect is aught but enticin',
+ Mayhap some real ill, like a protested bill,
+ Dims the sunshine that tinged the horizon:
+ Only let me puff, puff,--be they ever so rough,
+ All the sorrows of life I lose track o',
+ The mists disappear, and the vista is clear,
+ With a soothing mild pipe of tobacco.
+
+ And when joy after pain, like the sun after rain,
+ Stills the waters, long turbid and troubled,
+ That life's current may flow with a ruddier glow,
+ And the sense of enjoyment be doubled,--
+ Oh! let me puff, puff, till I feel _quantum suff._,
+ Such luxury still I'm in lack o';
+ Be joy ever so sweet, it would be incomplete,
+ Without a good pipe of tobacco.
+
+ Should my recreant muse--sometimes apt to refuse
+ The guidance of bit and of bridle--
+ Still blankly demur, spite of whip and spur,
+ Unimpassioned, inconstant, or idle;
+ Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries, "Enough!"
+ Such excitement is all I'm in lack o',
+ And the poetic vein soon to fancy gives rein,
+ Inspired by a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ And when, with one accord, round the jovial board,
+ In friendship our bosoms are glowing,
+ While with toast and with song we the evening prolong,
+ And with nectar the goblets are flowing;
+ Still let us puff, puff,--be life smooth, be it rough,
+ Such enjoyment we're ever in lack o';
+ The more peace and good-will will abound as we fill
+ A jolly good pipe of tobacco.
+
+JOHN USHER.
+
+
+
+
+EPITAPH
+
+_ON A YOUNG LADY WHO DESIRED THAT TOBACCO MIGHT BE PLANTED OVER HER
+GRAVE._
+
+
+ Let no cold marble o'er my body rise--
+ But only earth above, and sunny skies.
+ Thus would I lowly lie in peaceful rest,
+ Nursing the Herb Divine from out my breast.
+ Green let it grow above this clay of mine,
+ Deriving strength from strength that I resign.
+ So in the days to come, when I'm beyond
+ This fickle life, will come my lovers fond,
+ And gazing on the plant, their grief restrain
+ In whispering, "Lo! dear Anna blooms again!"
+
+
+
+
+THE SMOKER'S REVERIE.
+
+(_OCTOBER._)
+
+
+ I'm sitting at dusk 'neath the old beechen tree,
+ With its leaves by the autumn made ripe;
+ While they cling to the stems like old age unto life,
+ I dream of the days when I'll rest from this strife,
+ And in peace smoke my brierwood pipe.
+
+ O my brierwood pipe!--of bright fancy the twin,
+ What a medley of forms you create;
+ Every puff of white smoke seems a vision as fair
+ As the poet's bright dream, and like dreams fades in air,
+ While the dreamer dreams on of his fate.
+
+ The fleecy white clouds that now float in the sky,
+ Form the visions I love most to see;
+ Fairy shapes that I saw in my boyhood's first dreams
+ Seem to beckon me on, while beyond them there gleams
+ A bright future, in waiting for me.
+
+ O my brierwood pipe! I ne'er loved thee as now,
+ As that fair form and face steal above;
+ See, she beckons me on to where roses are spread,
+ And she points to my fancy the bright land ahead,
+ Where the winds whisper nothing but love.
+
+ Oh, answer, my pipe, shall my dream be as fair
+ When it changes to dreams of the past?
+ When autumn's chill winds make this leaf look as sere
+ As the leaves on the beech-tree that shelters me here,
+ Will the tree's _heart_ be chilled by the blast?
+
+ While musing, around me has gathered a heap
+ Of the leaflets, all dying and dead;
+ And I see in my reverie plainly revealed
+ The slope of life's hill, in my boyhood concealed
+ By the forms that fair fancy had bred.
+
+ While I sit on the banks of the beautiful stream,
+ Picking roses that bloom by its side,
+ I know that the shallop will certainly come,
+ When the roses are withered, to carry me home,
+ And that life will go out with the tide.
+
+ O my brierwood pipe! may the heart be as light
+ When memory supplanteth the dream;
+ When the sun has gone down may the sunbeam remain,
+ And life's roses, though dead, all their fragrance retain,
+ Till they catch at Eternity's gleam.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+A BRIEF PUFF OF SMOKE.
+
+
+ Great Doctor Parr, the learned Whig,
+ Ne'er deemed the smoke-cloud _infra dig._,
+ In which you could not see his wig,
+ Involved in clouds of smoke.
+
+ Quaint Lamb his wit would oft enshroud
+ In smoke-igniting laughter loud,
+ Like summer thunder in the cloud,--
+ The lightning in the smoke.
+
+ Dean Swift "died at the top;" his head
+ Had drifting clouds when wit had fled:
+ Dull care lurked in his brain, instead
+ Of blowing out in smoke.
+
+ And Cowper mild--no smoker he,
+ Bard of the sofa and bohea--
+ Complained his "dear friend Bull" not free
+ From lowering Stygian smoke.
+
+ Clouds in his non-inebriate nob
+ Were doomed the tea tables to rob,
+ Inflicting many a painful throb
+ On one who could not smoke!
+
+ Smoke on! it is the steam of life,
+ The smoother of the waves of strife;
+ Where chimneys smoke, or scolds the wife,
+ The counteraction--smoke.
+
+ We ride and work and weave by steam,
+ Till ages past seem like a dream
+ In a new world whose dawning beam
+ Is redolent of smoke.
+
+ We travel like a comet wild
+ On which some distant sun had smiled,
+ And from his orbit thus beguiled
+ With a long tail of smoke.
+
+ The clouds arise from smoking seas,
+ And give, with each conveying breeze,
+ Life to the "weed," and herbs, and trees,
+ Which turn again to smoke.
+
+ All nations smoke! Havana's pother
+ Smokes friendly with its Broseley brother:
+ The world's one end puffs to the other,
+ In amicable smoke.
+
+ When plague and pestilence go forth,
+ And to diseases dire give birth,
+ Which walk in darkness through the earth,
+ I clothe myself in smoke.
+
+ I smoke through desolating years,
+ Tabooed from fever, void of fears,
+ And when some dreaded pest appears,
+ I call in Doctor Smoke.
+
+ Go, reader! perfume ladies' hair
+ And scent the ringlets of the fair
+ With eau Cologne and odors rare
+ Aloof from healthy smoke.
+
+ Go babble at the ball and rout,
+ And smirk with high-born dames who doubt:
+ Thy flames are quenched, thy fires are out,
+ And sinking into smoke.
+
+ "Better," said Johnson, great in name,
+ "It were, when poets droop in fame,
+ To see smoke brighten into flame,
+ Than flames sink into smoke."
+
+SELIM: _Eclectic Magazine_.
+
+
+
+
+A SYMPHONY IN SMOKE.
+
+
+ A pretty, piquant, pouting pet,
+ Who likes to muse and take her ease,
+ She loves to smoke a cigarette;
+
+ To dream in silken hammockette,
+ And sing and swing beneath the trees,
+ A pretty, piquant, pouting pet.
+
+ Her Christian name is Violet;
+ Her eyes are blue as summer skies;
+ She loves to smoke a cigarette.
+
+ As calm as babe in bassinette,
+ She swingeth in the summer breeze,
+ A pretty, piquant, pouting pet.
+
+ She ponders o'er a novelette;
+ Her parasol is Japanese;
+ She loves to smoke a cigarette.
+
+ She loves a fume without a fret;
+ Her frills are white, her frock _cerise_,--
+ A pretty, pouting, piquant pet.
+
+ She almost goes to sleep, and yet,
+ Half-lulled by booming honey-bees,
+ She loves to smoke a cigarette.
+
+ A winsome, clever, cool coquette,
+ Who flouts all Grundian decrees,--
+ pretty, pouting, piquant pet,
+ That loves to smoke a cigarette.
+
+_Harper's Bazaar_.
+
+
+
+
+IT MAY BE WEEDS.
+
+
+ It may be weeds
+ I've gathered too;
+ But even weeds may be
+ As fragrant as
+ The fairest flower
+ With some sweet memory.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+SEASONABLE SWEETS.
+
+"_DON'T BE FLOWERY, JACOB._"--CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+ When the year is young, what sweets are flung
+ By the violets, hiding, dim,
+ And the lilac that sways her censers high,
+ Whilst the skylark chants a hymn!
+ How sweet is the scent of the daffodil bloom,
+ When blithe spring decks each spray,
+ And the flowering thorn sheds rare perfume
+ Through the beautiful month of May!
+ What a dainty pet is the mignonette,
+ Whose sweets wide scattered are!
+ But sweeter to me than all these yet
+ Is the scent of a prime cigar!
+
+ Delicious airs waft the fields of June,
+ When the beans are all in flower;
+ The woodruff is fragrant in the hedge,
+ And the woodbine in the bower.
+ Sweet eglantine doth her garlands twine
+ For the blithe hours as they run,
+ And balmily sighs the meadow-sweet,
+ That is all in love with the sun,
+ Whilst new-mown hay o'er the hedgerows gay
+ Flings odorous airs afar;
+ Yet sweeter than these on the passing breeze
+ Is the scent of a prime cigar.
+
+ When all the beauties of Flora's court
+ Smile on the gay parterre,
+ What glorious color, what exquisite form,
+ And dainty scents are there!
+ They bask in the beam, and bend by the stream,
+ Like beautiful nymphs at play,
+ Holding dew-pearls up in each nectar cup
+ To the glorious God of Day.
+ Oh, their lives are sweet, but all too brief,
+ And death doth their sweetness mar;
+ But fragrance fine is forever thine,
+ My well-beloved cigar!
+
+C.
+
+
+
+
+GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE.
+
+
+ Good pipe, old friend, old black and colored friend,
+ Whom I have smoked these fourteen years and more,
+ My best companion, faithful to the end,
+ Faithful to death through all thy fiery core,
+
+ How shall I sing thy praises, or proclaim
+ The generous virtues which I've found in thee?
+ I know thou carest not a whit for fame,
+ And hast no thought but how to comfort me,
+
+ And serve my needs, and humor every mood;
+ But love and friendship do my heart constrain
+ To give thee all I can for much of good
+ Which thou hast rendered me in joy and pain.
+
+ Say, then, old honest meerschaum! shall I weave
+ Thy history together with my own?
+ Of late I never see thee but I grieve
+ For him whose gift thou wert--forever gone!
+
+ Gone to his grave amidst the vines of France,
+ He, all so good, so beautiful, and wise;
+ And this dear giver doth thyself enhance,
+ And makes thee doubly precious in mine eyes.
+
+ For he was one of Nature's rarest men,--
+ Poet and preacher, lover of his kind,
+ True-hearted man of God, whose like again
+ In this world's journey I may never find.
+
+ I know not if the shadow of his soul,
+ Or the divine effulgence of his heart,
+ Has through thy veins in mystic silence stole;
+ But thou to me dost seem of him a part.
+
+ His hands have touched thee, and his lips have drawn,
+ As mine, full many an inspiring cloud
+ From thy great burning heart, at night and morn;
+ And thou art here, whilst he lies in his shroud!
+
+ And here am I, his friend and thine, old pipe!
+ And he has often sat my chair beside,
+ As he was wont to sit in living type,
+ Of many companies the flower and pride,--
+
+ Sat by my side, and talked to me the while,
+ Invisible to every eye save mine,
+ And smiled upon me as he used to smile
+ When we three sat o'er our good cups of wine.
+
+ Ah, happy days, when the old Chapel House,
+ Of the old Forest Chapel, rang with mirth,
+ And the great joy of our divine carouse,
+ As we hobnobbed it by the blazing hearth!
+
+ We never more, old pipe, shall see those days,
+ Whose memories lie like pictures in my mind;
+ But thou and I will go the self-same ways,
+ E'en though we leave all other friends behind.
+
+ And for thy sake, and for my own, and his,
+ We will be one, as we have ever been,
+ Thou dear old friend, with thy most honest phiz,
+ And no new faces come our loves between.
+
+
+II.
+
+ Thou hast thy separate virtues, honest pipe!
+ Apart from all the memory of friends:
+ For thou art mellow, old, and black, and ripe;
+ And the good weed that in its smoke ascends
+
+ From thy rare bowl doth scent the liberal air
+ With incense richer than the woods of Ind.
+ E'en to the barren palate of despair
+ (Inhaled through cedar tubes from glorious Scinde!)
+
+ It hath a charm would quicken into life,
+ And make the heart gush out in streams of love,
+ And the earth, dead before, with beauty rife,
+ And full of flowers as heaven of stars above.
+
+ It is thy virtue and peculiar gift,
+ Thou sooty wizard of the potent weed;
+ No other pipe can thus the soul uplift,
+ Or such rare fancies and high musings breed.
+
+ I've tried full many of thy kith and kind,
+ Dug from thy native Asiatic clay,
+ Fashioned by cunning hand and curious mind
+ Into all shapes and features, grave and gay,--
+
+ Black niggers' heads with their white-livered eyes
+ Glaring in fiery horror through the smoke,
+ And monstrous dragons stained with bloody dyes,
+ And comelier forms; but all save thee I broke.
+
+ For though, like thee, each pipe was black and old,
+ They were not wiser for their many years,
+ Nor knew thy sorcery though set in gold,
+ Nor had thy tropic taste,--these proud compeers!
+
+ Like great John Paul, who would have loved thee well,
+ Thou art the "only one" of all thy race;
+ Nor shall another comrade near thee dwell,
+ Old King of pipes! my study's pride and grace!
+
+
+III.
+
+ Thus have I made "assurance doubly sure,"
+ And sealed it twice, that thou shalt reign alone!
+ And as the dainty bee doth search for pure,
+ Sweet honey till his laden thighs do groan
+
+ With their sweet burden, tasting nothing foul,
+ So thou of best tobacco shalt be filled;
+ And when the starry midnight wakes the owl,
+ And the lorn nightingale her song has trilled,
+
+ I, with my lamp and books, as is my wont,
+ Will give thee of the choicest of all climes,--
+ Black Cavendish, full-flavored, full of juice,
+ Pale Turkish, famed through all the Osman times,
+
+ Dark Latakia, Syrian, Persia's pride,
+ And sweet Virginian, sweeter than them all!
+ Oh, rich bouquet of plants! fit for a bride
+ Who, blushing, waits the happy bridegroom's call!
+
+ And these shall be thy food, thy dainty food,
+ And we together will their luxury share,
+ Voluptuous tumults stealing through the blood,
+ Voluptuous visions filling all the air!
+
+ I will not thee profane with impious shag,
+ Nor poison thee with nigger-head and twist,
+ Nor with Kentucky, though the planters brag
+ That it hath virtues all the rest have missed.
+
+ These are for porters, loafers, and the scum,
+ Who have no sense for the diviner weeds,
+ Who drink their muddy beer and muddier rum,
+ Insatiate, like dogs in all their greeds.
+
+ But not for thee nor me these things obscene;
+ We have a higher pleasure, purer taste.
+ My draughts have been with thee of hippocrene,
+ And our delights intelligent and chaste.
+
+
+IV.
+
+ Intelligent and chaste since we have held
+ Commune together on the world's highway;
+ No Falstaff failings have my mind impelled
+ To do misdeeds of sack by night or day;
+
+ But we have ever erred on virtue's side--
+ At least we should have done--but woe is me!
+ I fear in this my statement I have lied,
+ For ghosts, like moonlight shadows on the sea,
+
+ Crowd thick around me from the shadowy past,--
+ Ghosts of old memories reeling drunk with wine!
+ And boon companions, Lysius-like, and vast
+ In their proportions as the god divine.
+
+ I do confess my sins, and here implore
+ The aid of "Rare Old Ben" and other ghosts
+ That I may sin again, but rarely more,
+ Responsive only unto royal toasts.
+
+ For, save these sins, I am a saintly man,
+ And live like other saints on prayer and praise,
+ My long face longer, if life be a span,
+ Than any two lives in these saintly days.
+
+ So let me smoke and drink and do good deeds,
+ And boast the doing like a Pharisee;
+ Am I not holy if I love the creeds,
+ Even though my drinking sins choke up the sea?
+
+GEORGE S. PHILLIPS (JANUARY SEARLE): _The Gypsies of the Dane's Dike._
+
+
+
+
+INVOCATION TO TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Weed of the strange flower, weed of the earth,
+ Killer of dulness, parent of mirth,
+ Come in the sad hour, come in the gay,
+ Appear in the night, or in the day,--
+ Still thou art welcome as June's blooming rose,
+ Joy of the palate, delight of the nose.
+
+ Weed of the green field, weed of the wild,
+ Fostered in freedom, America's child,
+ Come in Virginia, come in Havana,
+ Friend of the universe, sweeter than manna,--
+ Still thou art welcome, rich, fragrant, and ripe,
+ Pride of the tube-case, delight of the pipe.
+
+ Weed of the savage, weed of each pole,
+ Comforting, soothing, philosophy's soul,
+ Come in the snuff-box, come in cigar,
+ In Strasburgh and King's, come from afar,--
+ Still thou art welcome, the purest, the best,
+ Joy of earth's millions, forever carest.
+
+HENRY JAMES MELLEN.
+
+
+
+
+VIRGINIA TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Two maiden dames of sixty-two
+ Together long had dwelt;
+ Neither, alas! of love so true
+ The bitter pang had felt.
+
+ But age comes on, they say, apace,
+ To warn us of our death,
+ And wrinkles mar the fairest face,--
+ At last it stops our breath.
+
+ One of these dames tormented sore
+ With that curst pang, toothache,
+ Was at a loss for such a bore
+ What remedy to take.
+
+ "I've heard," thought she, "this ill to cure,
+ A pipe is good, they say.
+ Well then, tobacco I'll endure,
+ And smoke the pain away."
+
+ The pipe was lit, the tooth soon well,
+ And she retired to rest,
+ When then the other ancient belle
+ Her spinster maid addressed,--
+
+ "Let me request a favor, pray"--
+ "I'll do it if I can"--
+ "Oh! well, then, love, smoke every day,
+ _You smell so like a man!_"
+
+Attributed to JOHN STANLEY GREGSON.
+
+
+
+
+AN ODE OF THANKS FOR CERTAIN CIGARS.
+
+_TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON._
+
+
+ Luck, my dear Norton, still makes shifts,
+ To mix a mortal with her gifts,
+ Which he may find who duly sifts.
+
+ Sweets to the sweet,--behold the clue!
+ Why not, then, new things to the gnu,
+ And trews to Highland clansmen true?
+
+ 'Twas thus your kindly thought decreed
+ These weeds to one who is indeed,
+ And feels himself, a very weed,--
+
+ A weed from which, when bruised and shent,
+ Though some faint perfume may be rent,
+ Yet oftener much without a cent.
+
+ But imp, O Muse, a stronger wing
+ Mount, leaving self below, and sing
+ What thoughts these Cuban exiles bring!
+
+ He that knows aught of mythic lore
+ Knows how god Bacchus wandered o'er
+ The earth, and what strange names he bore.
+
+ The Bishop of Avranches supposes
+ That all these large and varying doses
+ Of fable mean naught else than Moses;
+
+ But waiving doubts, we surely know
+ He taught mankind to plough and sow,
+ And from the Tigris to the Po
+
+ Planted the vine; but of his visit
+ To this our hemisphere, why is it
+ We have no statement more explicit?
+
+ He gave to us a leaf divine
+ More grateful to the serious Nine
+ Than fierce inspirings of the vine.
+
+ And that _he_ loved it more, this proved,--
+ He gave his name to what he loved,
+ Distorted now, but not removed.
+
+ Tobacco, sacred herb, though lowly,
+ Baffles old Time, the tyrant, wholly,
+ And makes him turn his hour-glass slowly;
+
+ Nay, makes as 'twere of every glass six,
+ Whereby we beat the heathen classics
+ With their weak Chians and their Massics.
+
+ These gave his glass a quicker twist,
+ And flew the hours like driving mist,
+ While Horace drank and Lesbia kissed.
+
+ How are we gainers when all's done,
+ If Life's swift clepsydra have run
+ With wine for water? 'Tis all one.
+
+ But this rare plant delays the stream
+ (At least if things are what they seem)
+ Through long eternities of dream.
+
+ What notes the antique Muse had known
+ Had she, instead of oat-straws, blown
+ Our wiser pipes of clay or stone!
+
+ Rash song, forbear! Thou canst not hope,
+ Untutored as thou art, to cope
+ With themes of such an epic scope.
+
+ Enough if thou give thanks to him
+ Who sent these leaves (forgive the whim)
+ Plucked from the dream-tree's sunniest limb.
+
+ My gratitude feels no eclipse,
+ For I, whate'er my other slips,
+ Shall have his kindness on my lips.
+
+ The prayers of Christian, Turk, and Jew
+ Have one sound up there in the blue,
+ And one smell all their incense, too.
+
+ Perhaps that smoke with incense ranks
+ Which curls from 'mid life's jars and clanks,
+ Graceful with happiness and thanks.
+
+ I pledge him, therefore, in a puff,--
+ rather frailish kind of stuff,
+ But still professional enough.
+
+ Hock-cups breed hiccups; let us feel
+ The god along our senses steel
+ More nobly and without his reel.
+
+ Each temperately 'baccy _plenus_,
+ May no grim fate of doubtful genus
+ E'er blow the smallest cloud between us.
+
+ And as his gift I shall devote
+ To fire, and o'er their ashes gloat,--
+ Let him do likewise with this note.
+
+JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+[From "The Letters of James Russell Lowell." Copyright, 1893, by
+Harper & Brothers.]
+
+
+
+
+AN ENCOMIUM ON TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Thrice happy isles that stole the world's delight,
+ And thus produce so rich a Margarite!
+ It is the fountain whence all pleasure springs,
+ A potion for imperial and mighty kings.
+
+ He that is master of so rich a store
+ May laugh at Croesus and esteem him poor;
+ And with his smoky sceptre in his fist,
+ Securely flout the toiling alchemist,
+ Who daily labors with a vain expense
+ In distillations of the quintessence,
+ Not knowing that this golden herb alone
+ Is the philosopher's admired stone.
+
+ It is a favor which the gods doth please,
+ If they do feed on smoke, as Lucian says.
+ Therefore the cause that the bright sun doth rest
+ At the low point of the declining west--
+ When his oft-wearied horses breathless pant--
+ Is to refresh himself with this sweet plant,
+ Which wanton Thetis from the west doth bring,
+ To joy her love after his toilsome ring:
+ For 'tis a cordial for an inward smart,
+ As is dictamnum to the wounded hart.
+ It is the sponge that wipes out all our woe;
+ 'Tis like the thorn that doth on Pelion grow,
+ With which whoe'er his frosty limbs anoints,
+ Shall feel no cold in fat or flesh or joints.
+ 'Tis like the river, which whoe'er doth taste
+ Forgets his present griefs and sorrows past.
+ Music, which makes grim thoughts retire,
+ And for a while cease their tormenting fire,--
+ Music, which forces beasts to stand and gaze,
+ And fills their senseless spirits with amaze,--
+ Compared to this is like delicious strings,
+ Which sound but harshly while Apollo sings.
+ The train with this infumed, all quarrel ends,
+ And fiercest foemen turn to faithful friends;
+ The man that shall this smoky magic prove,
+ Will need no philtres to obtain his love.
+
+ Yet the sweet simple, by misordered use,
+ Death or some dangerous sickness may produce.
+ Should we not for our sustentation eat
+ Because a surfeit comes from too much meat?
+ So our fair plant--that doth as needful stand
+ As heaven, or fire, or air, or sea, or land;
+ As moon, or stars that rule the gloomy night,
+ Or sacred friendship, or the sunny light--
+ Her treasured virtue in herself enrolls,
+ And leaves the evil to vainglorious souls.
+ And yet, who dies with this celestial breath
+ Shall live immortal in a joyful death.
+ All goods, all pleasures it in one can link--
+ 'Tis physic, clothing, music, meat, and drink.
+
+ Gods would have revell'd at their feasts of mirth
+ With this pure distillation of the earth;
+ The marrow of the world, star of the West,
+ The pearl whereby this lower orb is blest;
+ The joy of mortals, umpire of all strife,
+ Delight of nature, mithridate of life;
+ The daintiest dish of a delicious feast,
+ By taking which man differs from a beast.
+
+ANONYMOUS: _Time, James I._
+
+
+
+
+ON A TOBACCO JAR.
+
+
+ Three hundred years ago or soe,
+ One worthy knight and gentlemanne
+ Did bring me here, to charm and chere,
+ To physical and mental manne.
+ God bless his soule who filled ye bowle,
+ And may our blessings find him;
+ That he not miss some share of blisse
+ Who left soe much behind him.
+
+BERNARD BARKER.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE TOBACCO PIPE.
+
+
+ Dear piece of fascinating clay!
+ 'Tis thine to smooth life's rugged way,
+ To give a happiness unknown
+ To those--who let a pipe alone;
+ Thy tube can best the vapors chase,
+ By raising--others in their place;
+ Can give the face staid Wisdom's air,
+ And teach the lips--to ope with care;
+ 'Tis hence thou art the truest friend
+ (Where least is said there's least to mend),
+ And he who ventures many a joke
+ Had better oft be still and smoke.
+
+ Whatever giddy foplings think,
+ Thou giv'st the highest zest to drink.
+ When fragrant clouds thy fumes exhale,
+ And hover round the nut-brown ale,
+ Who thinks of claret or champagne?
+ E'en burgundy were pour'd in vain.
+
+ 'Tis not in city smoke alone,
+ Midst fogs and glooms thy charms are known.
+ With thee, at morn, the rustic swain
+ Tracks o'er the snow-besprinkled plain,
+ To seek some neighb'ring copse's side,
+ And rob the woodlands of their pride:
+ With thee, companion of his toil,
+ His active spirits ne'er recoil;
+ Though hard his daily task assign'd,
+ He bears it with an equal mind.
+
+ The fisher 'board some little bark,
+ When all around is drear and dark,
+ With shortened pipe beguiles the hour,
+ Though bleak the wind and cold the show'r,
+ Nor thinks the morn's approach too slow,
+ Regardless of what tempests blow.
+ Midst hills of sand, midst ditches, dikes,
+ Midst cannons, muskets, halberts, pikes;
+ With thee, as still, Mynheer can stay,
+ As Neddy 'twixt two wisps of hay;
+ Heedless of Britain and of France,
+ Smokes on--and looks to the main chance.
+
+ And sure the solace thou canst give
+ Must make thy fame unrivalled live,
+ So long as men can temper clay
+ (For as thou art, e'en so are they),
+ The sun mature the Indian weed,
+ And rolling years fresh sorrows breed.
+
+From _The Meteors_, London.
+
+
+
+
+THE PATRIOTIC SMOKER'S LAMENT.
+
+
+ Tell me, shade of Walter Raleigh,
+ Briton of the truest type,
+ When that too devoted valet
+ Quenched your first-recorded pipe,
+ Were you pondering the opinion,
+ As you watched the airy coil,
+ That the virtue of Virginia
+ Might be bred in British soil?
+
+ You transplanted the potato,
+ 'Twas a more enduring gift
+ Than the wisdom of a Plato
+ To our poverty and thrift.
+ That respected root has flourished
+ Nobly for a nation's need,
+ But our brightest dreams are nourished
+ Ever on a foreign weed.
+
+ From the deepest meditation
+ Of the philosophic scribe,
+ From the poet's inspiration,
+ For the cynic's polished gibe,
+ We invoke narcotic nurses
+ In their jargon from afar,
+ I indite these modest verses
+ On a polyglot cigar.
+
+ Leaf that lulls a Turkish Aga
+ May a scholar's soul renew,
+ Fancy spring from Larranaga,
+ History from honey-dew.
+ When the teacher and the tyro
+ Spirit-manna fondly seek,
+ 'Tis the cigarette from Cairo,
+ Or a compound from the Greek.
+
+ But no British-born aroma
+ Is fit incense to the Queen,
+ Nature gives her best diploma
+ To the alien nicotine.
+ We are doomed to her ill-favor,
+ For the plant that's native grown
+ Has a patriotic flavor
+ Too exclusively our own.
+
+ O my country, could your smoker
+ Boast your "shag," or even "twist,"
+ Every man were mediocre
+ Save the blest tobacconist!
+ He will point immortal morals,
+ Make all common praises mute,
+ Who shall win our grateful laurels
+ With a national cheroot.
+
+_The St. James Gazette_.
+
+
+
+
+TO AN OLD PIPE.
+
+
+ Once your smoothly polished face
+ Nestled lightly in a case;
+ 'Twas a jolly cosy place,
+ I surmise;
+
+ And a zealous subject blew
+ On your cheeks, until they grew
+ To the fascinating hue
+ Of her eyes.
+
+ Near a rusty-hilted sword,
+ Now upon my mantel-board,
+ Where my curios are stored,
+ You recline.
+
+ You were pleasant company when
+ By the scribbling of her pen
+ I was sent the ways of men
+ To repine.
+
+ Tell me truly (you were there
+ When she ceased that debonair
+ Correspondence and affair)
+ I suppose
+
+ That she laughed and smiled all day;
+ Or did gentle tear-drops stray
+ Down her charming _retroussee_
+ Little nose?
+
+ Where the sunbeams, coyly still,
+ Fall upon the mantel-sill,
+ You perpetually will
+ Silence woo;
+
+ And I fear that she herself,
+ By the little chubby elf.
+ Will be laid upon the shelf
+ Just as you.
+
+DE WITT STERRY.
+
+
+
+
+TITLEPAGE DEDICATION.
+
+ "Let those smoke now who never smoked before,
+ And those who always smoked--now smoke the more."
+
+
+
+
+ACROSTIC.
+
+ To thee, blest weed, whose sovereign wiles,
+ O'er cankered care bring radiant smiles,
+ Best gift of Love to mortals given!
+ At once the bud and bliss of Heaven!
+ Crownless are kings uncrowned by thee;
+ Content the serf in thy sweet liberty,
+ O charm of life! O foe to misery!
+
+J.H.
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER MATCH.
+
+_AFTER A.C. SWINBURNE._
+
+
+ If love were dhudeen olden,
+ And I were like the weed,
+ Oh! we would live together
+ And love the jolly weather,
+ And bask in sunshine golden,
+ Rare pals of choicest breed;
+ If love were dhudeen olden,
+ And I were like the weed.
+
+ If you were oil essential,
+ And I were nicotine,
+ We'd hatch up wicked treason,
+ And spoil each smoker's reason,
+ Till he grew penitential,
+ And turned a bilious green;
+ If you were oil essential,
+ And I were nicotine.
+
+ If you were snuff, my darling,
+ And I, your love, the box.
+ We'd live and sneeze together,
+ Shut out from all the weather,
+ And anti-snuffers snarling,
+ In neckties orthodox;
+ If you were snuff, my darling,
+ And I, your love, the box.
+
+ If you were the aroma,
+ And I were simply smoke,
+ We'd skyward fly together,
+ As light as any feather;
+ And flying high as Homer,
+ His gray old ghost we'd choke;
+ If you were the aroma,
+ And I were simply smoke.
+
+From _Cope's Tobacco Plant_.
+
+
+
+
+IN WREATHS OF SMOKE.
+
+
+ In wreaths of smoke, blown waywardwise,
+ Faces of olden days uprise,
+ And in his dreamers revery
+ They haunt the smoker's brain, and he
+ Breathes for the past regretful sighs.
+
+ Mem'ries of maids, with azure eyes,
+ In dewy dells, 'neath June's soft skies,
+ Faces that more he'll only see
+ In wreaths of smoke.
+
+ Eheu, eheu! how fast Time flies,--
+ How youth-time passion droops and dies,
+ And all the countless visions flee!
+ How worn would all those faces be,
+ Were they not swathed in soft disguise
+ In wreaths of smoke!
+
+FRANK NEWTON HOLMAN.
+
+
+
+
+ASHES.
+
+
+ Wrapped in a sadly tattered gown,
+ Alone I puff my brier brown,
+ And watch the ashes settle down
+ In lambent flashes;
+ While thro' the blue, thick, curling haze,
+ I strive with feeble eyes to gaze,
+ Upon the half-forgotten days
+ That left but ashes.
+
+ Again we wander through the lane,
+ Beneath the elms and out again,
+ Across the rippling fields of grain,
+ Where softly flashes
+ A slender brook 'mid banks of fern,
+ At every sigh my pulses burn,
+ At every thought I slowly turn
+ And find but ashes.
+
+ What made my fingers tremble so,
+ As you wrapped skeins of worsted snow,
+ Around them, now with movements slow
+ And now with dashes?
+ Maybe 'tis smoke that blinds my eyes,
+ Maybe a tear within them lies;
+ But as I puff my pipe there flies
+ A cloud of ashes.
+
+ Perhaps you did not understand,
+ How lightly flames of love were fanned.
+ Ah, every thought and wish I've planned
+ With something clashes!
+ And yet within my lonely den
+ Over a pipe, away from men,
+ I love to throw aside my pen
+ And stir the ashes.
+
+DE WITT STERRY.
+
+
+
+
+CHOOSING A WIFE BY A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Tube, I love thee as my life;
+ By thee I mean to choose a wife.
+ Tube, thy _color_ let me find,
+ In her _skin_, and in her _mind_.
+ Let her have a _shape_ as fine;
+ Let her breath be sweet as thine;
+ Let her, when her lips I kiss,
+ _Burn_ like thee, to give me bliss;
+ Let her, in some _smoke_ or other,
+ All my failings kindly smother.
+ Often when my thoughts are _low_,
+ Send them where they ought to go;
+ When to study I incline,
+ Let her aid be such as thine;
+ Such as thine the charming power
+ In the vacant social hour.
+ Let her live to give delight,
+ Ever _warm_ and ever _bright_;
+ Let her deeds, whene'er she dies,
+ Mount as incense to the skies.
+
+_Gentleman's Magazine_.
+
+
+
+
+MY THREE LOVES.
+
+
+ When Life was all a summer day,
+ And I was under twenty,
+ Three loves were scattered in my way--
+ And three at once are plenty.
+ Three hearts, if offered with a grace,
+ One thinks not of refusing;
+ The task in this especial case
+ Was only that of choosing.
+ I knew not which to make my pet,--
+ My pipe, cigar, or cigarette.
+
+ To cheer my night or glad my day
+ My pipe was ever willing;
+ The meerschaum or the lowly clay
+ Alike repaid the filling.
+ Grown men delight in blowing clouds,
+ As boys in blowing bubbles,
+ Our cares to puff away in crowds
+ And vanish all our troubles.
+ My pipe I nearly made my pet,
+ Above cigar or cigarette.
+
+ A tiny paper, tightly rolled
+ About some Latakia,
+ Contains within its magic fold
+ A mighty _panacea_.
+ Some thought of sorrow or of strife
+ At ev'ry whiff will vanish;
+ And all the scenery of life
+ Turn picturesquely Spanish.
+ But still I could not quite forget
+ Cigar and pipe for cigarette.
+
+ To yield an after-dinner puff
+ O'er _demi-tasse_ and brandy,
+ No cigarettes are strong enough,
+ No pipes are ever handy.
+ However fine may be the feed,
+ It only moves my laughter
+ Unless a dry delicious weed
+ Appears a little after.
+ A prime cigar I firmly set
+ Above a pipe or cigarette.
+
+ But after all I try in vain
+ To fetter my opinion;
+ Since each upon my giddy brain
+ Has boasted a dominion.
+ Comparisons I'll not provoke,
+ Lest _all_ should be offended.
+ Let this discussion end in smoke
+ As many more have ended.
+ And each I'll make a special pet;
+ My pipe, cigar, and cigarette.
+
+HENRY S. LEIGH.
+
+
+
+
+SMOKE IS THE FOOD OF LOVERS.
+
+
+ When Cupid open'd shop, the trade he chose
+ Was just the very one you might suppose.
+ Love keep a shop?--his trade, oh! quickly name!
+ A dealer in tobacco--fie, for shame!
+ No less than true, and set aside all joke,
+ From oldest time he ever dealt in smoke;
+ Than smoke, no other thing he sold, or made;
+ Smoke all the substance of his stock in trade;
+ His capital all smoke, smoke all his store,
+ 'Twas nothing else; but lovers ask no more--
+ And thousands enter daily at his door!
+ Hence it was ever, and it e'er will be
+ The trade most suited to his faculty:
+ Fed by the vapors of their heart's desire,
+ No other food his votaries require;
+ For that they seek--the favor of the fair--
+ Is unsubstantial as the smoke and air.
+
+JACOB CATS: _Moral Emblems_.
+
+
+
+
+CLOUDS.
+
+
+ Mortals say their heart is light
+ When the clouds around disperse;
+ Clouds to gather, thick as night,
+ Is the smoker's universe.
+
+_From the German of Bauernfeld_.
+
+
+
+
+IN FAVOR OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Much victuals serves for gluttony
+ To fatten men like swine;
+ But he's a frugal man indeed
+ That with a leaf can dine,
+ And needs no napkin for his hands,
+ His fingers' ends to wipe,
+ But keeps his kitchen in a box,
+ And roast meat in a pipe.
+
+SAMUEL ROWLANDS: _Knave of Clubs_ (1611).
+
+
+
+
+MY CIGARETTE.
+
+_WORDS AND MUSIC BY RICHARD BARNARD_.
+
+
+ To my sweet cigarette I am singing
+ This joyous and bright bacca-role;
+ Just now to my lips she was clinging,
+ Her spirit was soothing my soul.
+ With figure so slender and dapper
+ I feel the soft touch of it yet,
+ Adorned in her dainty white wrapper,
+ How fair is my own cigarette!
+ 'Twere better, perhaps, that we part, love;
+ 'Twere better, if never we'd met.
+ Alas, you are part of my heart, love,
+ Destructive but sweet cigarette!
+
+ Though matchless, by matches she's fired,
+ And glows both with pleasure and pride;
+ By her soft, balmy breath I'm inspired,
+ And kiss and caress my new bride.
+ E'en the clouds of her nature are joyous,
+ Though other clouds cause us regret;
+ From worry and care they decoy us,
+ The clouds of a sweet cigarette.
+ 'Twere better, etc.
+
+ The houris in paradise living
+ Dissolve in the first love embrace,
+ Their life to their love freely giving,--
+ And so with my love 'tis the case;
+ For when her life's last spark is flying,
+ Still sweet to the end is my pet,
+ Who helps me, although she is dying,
+ To light up a fresh cigarette!
+ 'Twere better, etc.
+
+
+
+
+THE BALLADE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ When verdant youth sees life afar,
+ And first sets out wild oats to sow,
+ He puffs a stiff and stark cigar,
+ And quaffs champagne of Mumm & Co.
+ He likes not smoking yet; but though
+ Tobacco makes him sick indeed,
+ Cigars and wine he can't forego,--
+ A slave is each man to the weed.
+
+ In time his tastes more dainty are
+ And delicate. Become a beau,
+ From out the country of the czar
+ He brings his cigarettes, and lo!
+ He sips the vintage of Bordeaux.
+ Thus keener relish shall succeed
+ The baser liking we outgrow,--
+ A slave is each man to the weed
+
+ When age and his own lucky star
+ To him perfected wisdom show,
+ The schooner glides across the bar,
+ And beer for him shall freely flow;
+ A pipe with genial warmth shall glow,
+ To which he turns in direst need,
+ To seek in smoke surcease of woe,--
+ A slave is each man to the weed.
+
+
+
+
+ENVOI.
+
+
+ Smokers, who doubt or con or pro,
+ And ye who dare to drink, take heed!
+ And see in smoke a friendly foe,--
+ A slave is each man to the weed.
+
+BRANDER MATTHEWS.
+
+
+
+
+HE RESPONDETH.
+
+
+SHE.
+
+ You still persist in using,
+ I observe with great regret,
+ The needlessly expensive
+ Cigarette.
+
+
+ HE.
+
+ You should set a good example;
+ But you seem to quite forget
+ That you use a thirty-dollar
+ Vinaigrette.
+
+_Life._
+
+
+
+
+TO SEE HER PIPE AWRY.
+
+
+ Betty bouncer kept a stall
+ At the corner of a street,
+ And she had a smile for all.
+ Many were the friends she'd greet
+ With kindly nod on passing by,
+ Who, smiling, saw her pipe awry.
+
+ Poor old lass! she loved her pipe,
+ A constant friend it seemed to be;
+ As she sold her apples ripe,
+ With an apple on each knee,
+ How she'd make the smoke-wreaths fly,
+ As I've watched her pipe awry!
+
+ Seasons came and seasons went,
+ Only changing Betty's store;
+ Youngsters with her always spent
+ Their little all and wished they'd more:
+ Timidly with upturned eye
+ Staring at her pipe awry.
+
+ Bet was always at her post
+ Early morn or even late;
+ Ginger beer or chestnut roast,
+ Served she as she sat in state,
+ On two bushel-baskets high;
+ You should have seen her pipe awry!
+
+ Little care old Betty had,
+ She quietly jogged on her way;
+ Never did her face look sad.
+ Although she fumed the livelong day.
+ Guiltless seemed she of a sigh.
+ I never saw her pipe her eye!
+
+C.F.
+
+
+
+
+INGIN SUMMER.
+
+
+ Jest about the time when Fall
+ Gits to rattlin' in the trees,
+ An' the man thet knows it all,
+ 'Spicions frost in every breeze,
+ When a person tells hisse'f
+ Thet the leaves look mighty thin,
+ Then thar blows a meller breaf!
+ Ingin summer's hyere agin.
+
+ Kind-uh smoky-lookin' blues
+ Spins acrost the mountain-side,
+ An' the heavy mornin' dews
+ Greens the grass up far an' wide,
+ Natur' raly 'pears as ef
+ She wuz layin' off a day,--
+ Sort-uh drorin in her breaf
+ 'Fore she freezes up to stay.
+
+ Nary lick o' work I strike,
+ 'Long about this time of year!
+ I'm a sort-uh slowly like,
+ Right when Ingin summer's here.
+ Wife and boys kin do the work;
+ But a man with natchel wit,
+ Like I got, kin 'ford to shirk,
+ Ef he has a turn for it.
+
+ Time when grapes set in to ripe,
+ All I ast off any man
+ Is a common co'n-cob pipe
+ With terbacker to my han';
+ Then jest loose me whar the air
+ Simmers 'crost me, wahm an' free!
+ Promised lands ull find me thar;
+ Wings ull fahly sprout on me!
+
+ I'm a loungin' 'round on thrones,
+ Bossin' worlds f'om shore to shore,
+ When I stretch my marrer-bones
+ Jest outside the cabin door!
+ An' the sunshine peepin' down
+ On my old head, bald an' gray,
+ 'Pears right like the gilted crown,
+ I expect to w'ar some day.
+
+EVA WILDER MCGLASSON.
+
+
+
+
+EDIFYING REFLECTIONS OF A TOBACCO-SMOKER.
+
+_SET TO MUSIC BY JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH. AUTHOR UNKNOWN. TRANSLATED BY
+EDWARD BRECK._
+
+
+
+ As oft I fill my faithful pipe,
+ To while away the moments glad,
+ With fragrant leaves, so rich and ripe,
+ My mind perceives an image sad,
+ So that I can but clearly see
+ How very like it is to me.
+
+ My pipe is made of earth and clay,
+ From which my mortal part is wrought;
+ I, too, must turn to earth some day.
+ It often falls, as quick as thought,
+ And breaks in two,--puts out its flame;
+ My fate, alas! is but the same!
+
+ My pipe I color not, nor paint;
+ White it remains, and hence 'tis true
+ That, when in Death's cold arms I faint,
+ My lips shall wear the ashen hue;
+ And as it blackens day by day,
+ So black the grave shall turn my clay!
+
+ And when the pipe is put alight
+ The smoke ascends, then trembles, wanes,
+ And soon dissolves in sunshine bright,
+ And but the whitened ash remains.
+ 'Tis so man's glory crumble must,
+ E'en as his body, into dust!
+
+ How oft the filler is mislaid;
+ And, rather than to seek in vain,
+ I use my finger in its stead,
+ And fancy as I feel the pain,
+ If coals can burn to such degree,
+ How hot, O Lord, must Hades be!
+
+ So in tobacco oft I find,
+ Lessons of such instructive type;
+ And hence with calm, contented mind
+ I live, and smoke my faithful pipe
+ In reverence where'er I roam,--
+ On land, on water, and at home.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST LOTUS.
+
+
+ 'Tis said that in the sun-embroidered East,
+ There dwelt a race whose softly flowing hours
+ Passed like the vision of a royal feast,
+ By Nero given in the Baian bowers;
+ Thanks to the lotus-blossom spell,
+ Their lives were one long miracle.
+
+ In after years the passing sons of men
+ Looked for those lotus blossoms all in vain,
+ Through every hillside, glade, and glen
+ And e'en the isles of many a main;
+ Yet through the centuries some doom,
+ Forbade them see the lotus bloom.
+
+ The Old World wearied of the long pursuit,
+ And called the sacred leaf a poet's theme,
+ When lo! the New World, rich in flower and fruit,
+ Revealed the lotus, lovelier than the dream
+ That races of the long past days did haunt,--
+ The green-leaved, amber-tipped tobacco plant.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCENT OF A GOOD CIGAR.
+
+
+ What is it comes through the deepening dusk,--
+ Something sweeter than jasmine scent,
+ Sweeter than rose and violet blent,
+ More potent in power than orange or musk?
+ The scent of a good cigar.
+
+ I am all alone in my quiet room,
+ And the windows are open wide and free
+ To let in the south wind's kiss for me,
+ While I rock in the softly gathering gloom,
+ And that subtle fragrance steals.
+
+ Just as a loving, tender hand
+ Will sometimes steal in yours,
+ It softly comes through the open doors,
+ And memory wakes at its command,--
+ The scent of that good cigar.
+
+ And what does it say? Ah! that's for me
+ And my heart alone to know;
+ But that heart thrills with a sudden glow,
+ Tears fill my eyes till I cannot see,--
+ From the scent of that good cigar.
+
+KATE A. CARRINGTON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY CIGAR.
+
+
+ Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
+ In learned doctor's spite;
+ Thy clouds all other clouds dispel,
+ And lap me in delight.
+
+ What though they tell, with phizzes long,
+ My years are sooner past!
+ I would reply with reason strong,
+ They're sweeter while they last.
+
+ When in the lonely evening hour,
+ Attended but by thee,
+ O'er history's varied page I pore,
+ Man's fate in thine I see.
+
+ Oft as the snowy column grows,
+ Then breaks and falls away,
+ I trace how mighty realms thus rose,
+ Thus tumbled to decay.
+
+ Awhile like thee earth's masters burn
+ And smoke and fume around;
+ And then, like thee, to ashes turn,
+ And mingle with the ground.
+
+ Life's but a leaf adroitly rolled,
+ And Time's the wasting breath
+ That, late or early, we behold
+ Gives all to dusty death.
+
+ From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe,
+ One common doom is passed;
+ Sweet Nature's works, the swelling globe,
+ Must all burn out at last.
+
+ And what is he who smokes thee now?
+ A little moving heap,
+ That soon, like thee, to fate must bow,
+ With thee in dust must sleep.
+
+ But though thy ashes downward go,
+ Thy essence rolls on high;
+ Thus, when my body lieth low,
+ My soul shall cleave the sky.
+
+CHARLES SPRAGUE.
+
+
+
+
+KNICKERBOCKER.
+
+
+ Shade of Herrick, Muse of Locker,
+ Help me sing of Knickerbocker!
+ Boughton, had you bid me chant
+ Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant,
+ Had you bid me sing of Wouter,
+ He, the onion head, the doubter!
+ But to rhyme of this one--Mocker!
+ Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker?
+ Nay, but where my hand must fail,
+ There the more shall yours avail;
+ You shall take your brush and paint
+ All that ring of figures quaint,--
+ All those Rip Van Winkle jokers,
+ All those solid-looking smokers,
+ Pulling at their pipes of amber,
+ In the dark-beamed Council Chamber.
+
+ Only art like yours can touch
+ Shapes so dignified--and Dutch;
+ Only art like yours can show
+ How the pine logs gleam and glow,
+ Till the firelight laughs and passes
+ 'Twixt the tankards and the glasses,
+ Touching with responsive graces
+ All those grave Batavian faces,
+ Making bland and beatific
+ All that session soporific.
+
+ Then I come and write beneath:
+ Boughton, he deserves the wreath;
+ He can give us form and hue--
+ This the Muse can never do!
+
+AUSTIN DOBSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO.
+
+_A SAILOR'S VERSION_.
+
+
+ They were three jolly sailors bold,
+ Who sailed across the sea;
+ They'd braved the storm, and stood the gale,
+ And got to Virgin-ee.
+
+
+
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ 'Twas in the days of good Queen Bess,--
+ Or p'raps a bit before,--
+ And now these here three sailors bold
+ Went cruising on the shore.
+ A lurch to starboard, one to port,
+ Now forrard, boys, go we,
+ With a haul and a "Ho!" and a "That's your sort!"
+ To find out Tobac-kee.
+
+ Says Jack, "This here's a rummy land."
+ Says Tom, "Well, shiver me!
+ The sun shines out as precious hot
+ As ever I did see."
+ Says Dick, "Messmates, since here we be,"--
+ And gave his eye a wink,--
+ "We've come to find out Tobac-kee,
+ Which means a drop to drink."
+
+ Says Jack, says he, "The Injins think--"
+ Says Tom, "I'll swear as they
+ Don't think at all." Says Dick, "You're right;
+ It ain't their nat'ral way.
+ But I want to find out, my lads,
+ This stuff of which they tell;
+ For if as it ain't meant to drink,
+ Why, it must be meant to smell."
+
+ Says Tom, says he, "To drink or smell,
+ I don't think this here's meant."
+ Says Jack, says he, "Blame my old eyes,
+ If I'll believe it's scent."
+ "Well, then," says Dick, "if that ain't square,
+ It must be meant for meat;
+ So come along, my jovial mates,
+ To find what's good to eat."
+
+ They came across a great big plant,
+ A-growing tall and true.
+ Says Jack, says he, "I'm precious dry,"
+ And picked a leaf to chew.
+ While Tom takes up a sun-dried bit,
+ A-lying by the trees;
+ He rubs it in his hands to dust
+ And then begins to sneeze.
+
+ Another leaf picks nimble Dick,
+ And dries it in the sun,
+ And rolls it up all neat and tight.
+ "My lads," says he, in fun,
+ "I mean to cook this precious weed."
+ And then from out his poke
+ With burning-glass he lights the end,
+ And quick blows up the smoke.
+
+ Says Jack, says he, "Of Paradise
+ I've heerd some people tell."
+ Says Tom, says he, "This here will do;
+ Let's have another smell."
+ Says Dick, his face all pleasant smiles,
+ A-looking through a cloud,
+ "It strikes me here's the cap'en bold,
+ And now we'll all be rowed."
+
+ Up comes brave Hawkins on the beach;
+ "Shiver my hull!" he cries,
+ "What's these here games, my merry men?"
+ And then, "Why, blame my eyes!
+ Here's one as chaws, and one as snuffs,
+ And t' other of the three
+ Is smoking like a chimbley-pot--
+ They've found out Tobac-kee!"
+
+ So if ever you should hear
+ Of Raleigh, and them lies
+ About his sarvant and his pipe
+ And him as "Fire!" cries,
+ You say as 'twas three sailors bold
+ As sailed to Virgin-ee
+ In brave old Hawkins' gallant ship
+ Who found out Tobac-kee.
+ A lurch to starboard, one to port,
+ Now forrard, boys, go we,
+ With a haul and a "Ho!" and a "That's your sort!"
+ To find out Tobac-kee.
+
+_Cigar and Tobacco World_, London.
+
+
+
+
+"KEATS TOOK SNUFF."
+
+ "Keats took snuff.... It has been established by the
+ praise-worthy editorial research of Mr. Burton Forman."
+
+
+ So "Keats took snuff?" A few more years,
+ When we are dead and famous--eh?
+ Will they record our pipes and beers,
+ And if we smoked cigars or clay?
+ Or will the world cry "Quantum suff"
+ To tattle such as "Keats took snuff"?
+
+ Perhaps some chronicler would wish
+ To know what whiskey we preferred,
+ And if we ever dined on fish,
+ Or only took the joint and bird.
+ Such facts are quite as worthy stuff,
+ Good chronicler, as "Keats took snuff."
+
+ You answer: "But, if you were Keats--"
+ Tut! never mind your buts and ifs,
+ Of little men record their meats,
+ Their drinks, their troubles, and their tiffs,
+ Of the great dead there's gold enough
+ To spare us such as "Keats took snuff."
+
+ Well, go your ways, you little folk,
+ Who polish up the great folk's lives;
+ Record the follies that they spoke,
+ And paint their squabbles with their wives.
+ Somewhere, if ever ghosts be gruff,
+ I trust some Keats will "give you snuff."
+
+_The Globe_, London.
+
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF THE PIPE.
+
+
+ Oh, give me but Virginia's weed,
+ An earthen bowl, a stem of reed,
+ What care I for the weather?
+ Though winter freeze and summer broil
+ We rest us from our days of toil
+ My Pipe and I together!
+
+ Like to a priest of sacred fane,
+ I nightly light the glow again
+ With reverence and pleasure;
+ For through this plain and modest bowl
+ I coax sweet mem'ry to my soul
+ And many trippings measure!
+
+ There's comfort in each puff of smoke,
+ Defiance to ill-fortune's stroke
+ And happiness forever!
+ There grows a volume full of thought
+ And humor, than the book you bought
+ Holds nothing half so clever!
+
+ The summer fragrance, all pent up
+ Among the leaves, is here sent up
+ In dreams of summer glory;
+ And these blue clouds that slowly rise
+ Were colored by the summer skies,
+ And tell a summer story.
+
+ And oh! the happiest, sweetest times
+ Come ringing all their silver chimes
+ Of merry songs and laughter;
+ And all that may be well and worth
+ For Mother Future to bring forth
+ I do imagine after.
+
+ What care I if my poor means
+ Clad not my walls with splendid scenes
+ And pictures by the masters;
+ Here in the curling smoke-wreath glow
+ Bold hills and lovely vales below,
+ And brooks with nodding asters.
+
+ All that on earth is fair and fine,
+ This fragrant magic makes it mine,
+ And gives me sole dominion;
+ And if you call me fanciful,
+ I only take a stronger pull,
+ And laugh at your opinion.
+
+ Let others fret and fume with care,
+ 'Tis easy finding everywhere,
+ But happiness is rarer;
+ And if I find it sweet and ripe,
+ In this tobacco and my pipe,
+ I'll count it all the fairer.
+
+ Then give me but Virginia's weed,
+ An earthen bowl, a stem of reed,
+ What care I for the weather?
+ Though winter freeze, or summer broil
+ We rest us from the days of toil,
+ My Pipe and I together.
+
+HERMANN RAVE.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD CLAY PIPE.
+
+
+ There's a lot of solid comfort
+ In an old clay pipe, I find,
+ If you're kind of out of humor
+ Or in trouble in your mind.
+ When you're feeling awful lonesome
+ And don't know just what to do,
+ There's a heap of satisfaction
+ If you smoke a pipe or two.
+
+ The ten thousand pleasant memories
+ That are buried in your soul
+ Are playing hide and seek with you
+ Around that smoking bowl.
+ These are mighty restful moments:
+ You're at peace with all the world,
+ And the panorama changes
+ As the thin blue smoke is curled.
+
+ Now you cross the bridge of sorrows,
+ Now you enter pleasant lands,
+ And before an open doorway,
+ You will linger to shake hands
+ With a lithe and girlish figure
+ That is coming through the door;
+ Ah! you recognize the features:
+ You have seen that face before.
+
+ You are at the dear old homestead
+ Where you spent those happy years;
+ You are romping with the children;
+ You are smiling through your tears;
+ You have fought and whipped the bully
+ You are eight and he is ten.
+ Oh! how rapidly we travel,--
+ You are now a boy again.
+
+ You approach the open doorway,
+ And before the old armchair
+ You will stop and kiss the grandma,
+ You will smooth the thin white hair;
+ You will read the open Bible,
+ For the lamp is lit, you see.
+ It is now your hour for bed-time
+ And you kneel at mother's knee.
+
+ Still you linger at the hearthstone;
+ You are loath to leave the place.
+ When an apple cut's in progress:
+ You must wait and dance with Grace.
+
+ What's the matter with the music?
+ Only this: The pipe is broke,
+ And a thousand pleasant fancies
+ Vanish promptly with the smoke.
+
+A.B. VAN FLEET.
+
+
+
+
+PERNICIOUS WEED!
+
+
+ The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,
+ Makes half a sentence at a time enough;
+ The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain,
+ Then pause and puff, and speak, and pause again.
+ Such often, like the tube they so admire,
+ Important triflers! have more smoke than fire.
+ Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
+ Unfriendly to society's chief joys,
+ Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
+ The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
+
+WILLIAM COWPER.
+
+
+
+
+TWO OTHER HEARTS.
+
+
+ Full tender beamed the light of love down from his manly face,
+ As he pressed her to his bosom in a fervent, fond embrace.
+ No cost of others' happiness found place within his thought;
+ The weakness of life's brittle thread no dim forebodings brought.
+
+ But tenderer than the light of love, more brittle than life's
+ thread,
+ The shrouds that wrapped two other hearts gave up their withered
+ dead;
+ For, crumbling in his waistcoat, their glowing future dashed,
+ Two excellent Havanas were very badly smashed.
+
+_London Tobacco_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SMOKE TRAVELLER.
+
+
+ When I puff my cigarette,
+ Straight I see a Spanish girl,--
+ Mantilla, fan, coquettish curl,
+ Languid airs and dimpled face,
+ Calculating, fatal grace;
+ Hear a twittering serenade
+ Under lofty balcony played;
+ Queen at bull-fight, naught she cares
+ What her agile lover dares;
+ She can love and quick forget.
+
+ Let me but my meerschaum light,
+ I behold a bearded man,
+ Built upon capacious plan,
+ Sabre-slashed in war or duel,
+ Gruff of aspect, but not cruel,
+ Metaphysically muddled,
+ With strong beer a little fuddled,
+ Slow in love, and deep in books,
+ More sentimental than he looks,
+ Swears new friendships every night.
+
+ Let me my chibouk enkindle,--
+ In a tent I'm quick set down
+ With a Bedouin, lean and brown,
+ Plotting gain of merchandise,
+ Or perchance of robber prize;
+ Clumsy camel load upheaving,
+ Woman deftly carpet-weaving,
+ Meal of dates and bread and salt,
+ While in azure heavenly vault
+ Throbbing stars begin to dwindle.
+
+ Glowing coal in clay dudheen
+ Carries me to sweet Killarney,
+ Full of hypocritic blarney,--
+ Huts with babies, pigs, and hens
+ Mixed together, bogs and fens,
+ Shillalahs, praties, usquebaugh,
+ Tenants defying hated law,
+ Fair blue eyes with lashes black,
+ Eyes black and blue from cudgel-thwack,--
+ So fair, so foul, is Erin green.
+
+ My nargileh once inflamed,
+ Quick appears a Turk with turban,
+ Girt with guards in palace urban,
+ Or in house by summer sea
+ Slave-girls dancing languidly,
+ Bow-string, sack, and bastinado,
+ Black boats darting in the shadow;
+ Let things happen as they please,
+ Whether well or ill at ease,
+ Fate alone is blessed or blamed.
+
+ With my ancient calumet
+ I can raise a wigwam's smoke,
+ And the copper tribe invoke,--
+ Scalps and wampum, bows and knives,
+ Slender maidens, greasy wives,
+ Papoose hanging on a tree,
+ Chieftains squatting silently,
+ Feathers, beads, and hideous paint,
+ Medicine-man and wooden-saint,--
+ Forest-framed the vision set.
+
+ My cigar breeds many forms,--
+ Planter of the rich Havana
+ Mopping brow with sheer bandanna,
+ Russian prince in fur arrayed,
+ Paris fop on dress parade,
+ London swell just after dinner,
+ Wall Street broker--gambling sinner!
+ Delver in Nevada mine,
+ Scotch laird bawling "Auld Lang Syne."
+ Thus Raleigh's weed my fancy warms.
+
+ Life's review in smoke goes past,--
+ Fickle fortune, stubborn fate,
+ Right discovered all too late,
+ Beings loved and gone before,
+ Beings loved but friends no more,
+ Self-reproach and futile sighs,
+ Vanity in birth that dies,
+ Longing, heart-break, adoration,--
+ Nothing sure in expectation
+ Save ash-receiver at the last.
+
+IRVING BROWNE.
+
+
+
+
+SMOKING SONG.
+
+
+ With grateful twirl our smoke-wreaths curl,
+ As mist from the waterfall given,
+ Or the locks that float round beauty's throat
+ In the whispering air of even.
+
+ _Chorus_. Then drown the fears of the coming years,
+ And the dread of change before us;
+ The way is sweet to our willing feet,
+ With the smoke-wreaths twining o'er us.
+
+ As the light beams through the ringlets blue,
+ Will hope beam through our sorrow,
+ While the gathering wreath of the smoke we breathe
+ Shuts out the fear of to-morrow.
+
+ A magic charm in the evening calm
+ Calls thought from mem'ry's treasure;
+ But clear and bright in the liquid light
+ Are the smoke-called dreams of pleasure.
+
+ Then who shall chide, with boasting pride,
+ Delights they ne'er have tasted?
+ Oh, let them smile while we beguile
+ The hour with joys they've wasted.
+
+_College Song._
+
+
+
+
+HOW IT ONCE WAS.
+
+
+ Right stout and strong the worthy burghers stood,
+ Or rather, sat,
+ Drank beer in plenty, ate abundant food;
+ For they to ancient customs still were true,
+ And smoked, and smoked, because they surely knew
+ What they were at.
+
+ William the Testy ruled New Amsterdam,--
+ A tall man he,--
+ Whose rule was meant by him to be no sham,
+ But rather like the stern paternal style
+ That sways the city now. He made the while
+ A rough decree.
+
+ He ordered that the pipes should cease to smoke,
+ From that day on.
+ The people took the order as a joke;
+ They did not think, who smoked from childhood up,
+ That one man such delight would seek to stop,
+ Even in fun.
+
+ But when at last it dawned upon their minds
+ That this was meant,
+ They closed their houses, shut their window blinds,
+ Brought forth tobacco from their ample hoard,
+ And to the governor's house with one accord
+ The burghers went.
+
+ They carried chairs, and sat without a word
+ Before his porch,
+ And smoked, and smoked, and not a sound was heard,
+ Till Kieft came forth to take the morning air,
+ With speech that would have burned them then and there
+ If words could scorch.
+
+ But they, however savagely he spoke,
+ Made no reply.
+ Higher and thicker rose the clouds of smoke,
+ And Kieft, perceiving that they would be free
+ Tried not to put in force his harsh decree,
+ But let it die.
+
+_New York Sun_.
+
+
+
+
+HER BROTHER'S CIGARETTE.
+
+
+ Like raven's wings her locks of jet,
+ Her soft eyes touched with fond regret,
+ Doubt and desire her mind beset,
+ Fondling her brother's cigarette.
+
+ Roses with dewy diamonds set,
+ Drooped o'er the window's parapet;
+ With grace she turned a match to get,
+ And lit her brother's cigarette.
+
+ Her puffs of smoky violet
+ Twined in fantastic silhouette;
+ She blushed, laughed, coughed a little, yet,
+ She smoked her brother's cigarette.
+
+ Her eyes with briny tears were wet,
+ Her bang grew limp beneath its net,
+ Her brow was gemmed with beaded sweat,
+ And to her bed she went, you bet.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE OL' TOBACKER PATCH.
+
+
+ I jess kind o' feel so lonesome that I don't know what to do,
+ When I think about them days we used to spend
+ A hoein' out tobacker in th' clearin'--me an' you--
+ An' a wishin' that the day was at an end.
+ For the dewdrops was a sparklin' on the beeches' tender leaves
+ As we started out a workin' in the morn;
+ An' th' noonday sun was sendin' down a shower of burnin' sheaves
+ When we heard the welcome-soundin' dinner-horn.
+ An' th' shadders round us gathered in a sort of ghostly batch,
+ 'Fore we started home from workin' in that ol' tobacker patch.
+
+ I'm a feelin' mighty lonesome, as I look aroun' to-day,
+ For I see th' change that's taken place since then.
+ All th' hills is brown and faded, for th' woods is cleared away;
+ You an' me has changed from ragged boys to men;
+ You are livin' in th' city that we ust to dream about;
+ I am still a dwellin' here upon the place,
+ But my form is bent an' feeble, which was once so straight and
+ stout,
+ An' there's most a thousand wrinkles on my face.
+ You have made a mint of money; I, perhaps have been your match,
+ But we both enjoyed life better in that ol' tobacker patch.
+
+S.Q. LAPIUS.
+
+
+
+
+MAECENAS BIDS HIS FRIEND TO DINE.
+
+ I beg you come to-night and dine.
+ A welcome waits you, and sound wine,--
+ The Roederer chilly to a charm,
+ As Juno's breath the claret warm,
+ The sherry of an ancient brand.
+ No Persian pomp, you understand,--
+ A soup, a fish, two meats, and then
+ A salad fit for aldermen
+ (When aldermen, alas the days!
+ Were really worth their _mayonnaise_);
+ A dish of grapes whose clusters won
+ Their bronze in Carolinian sun;
+ Next, cheese--for you the Neufchatel,
+ A bit of Cheshire likes me well;
+ Cafe au lait or coffee black,
+ With Kirsch or Kuemmel or cognac
+ (The German band in Irving Place
+ By this time purple in the face);
+ Cigars and pipes. These being through,
+ Friends shall drop in, a very few--
+ Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.
+ When these are guests I bolt the door,
+ With "Not at home" to any one
+ Excepting Alfred Tennyson.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY MEERSCHAUM.
+
+
+ There's a charm in the sun-crested hills,
+ In the quivering light of a star,
+ In the flash of a silvery rill,
+ Yet to me thou art lovelier far,
+ My Meerschaum!
+
+ There's a love in her witching dark eye,
+ There's a love in her tresses at play,
+ Yet her love would be worth not a sigh,
+ If from thee she could lure me away,
+ My Meerschaum!
+
+ Let revellers sing of their wine,
+ As they toss it in ecstasy down,
+ But the bowl I call for is thine,
+ With its deepening amber and brown,
+ My Meerschaum!
+
+ For when trouble would bid me despair,
+ I call for a flagon of beer,
+ And puff a defiance to care,
+ Till sorrows in smoke disappear,
+ My Meerschaum!
+
+ Though mid pleasures unnumbered I whirl,
+ Though I traverse the billowy sea,
+ Yet the waving and beautiful curl
+ Of thy smoke's ever dearer to me,
+ My Meerschaum!
+
+P.D.R.
+
+
+
+
+OLD PIPE OF MINE.
+
+
+ Companion of my lonely hours,
+ Full many a time 'twixt night and morn
+ Thy muse hath roamed through poesy's bowers
+ Upon thy fragrant pinions borne.
+ Let others seek the bliss that reigns
+ In homage paid at beauty's shrine,
+ We envy not such foolish gains,
+ In sweet content, old pipe of mine.
+
+ Ah! you have been a travelled pipe;
+ But now, of course, you're getting stale,
+ Just like myself, and rather ripe;
+ You've had your fill of cakes and ale,
+ And half-forgotten memories, too.
+ And all the pensive thoughts that twine
+ Around a past that, _entre nous_,
+ Has pleasant been, old pipe of mine.
+
+ Old pipe of mine, for many a year
+ What boon companions we have been!
+ With here a smile and there a tear,
+ How many changes we have seen!
+ How many hearts have ceased to beat,
+ How many eyes have ceased to shine,
+ How many friends will never meet,
+ Since first we met, old pipe of mine!
+
+ Though here and there the road was deep,
+ And now and then the rain would fall;
+ We managed every time to keep
+ A sturdy forehead to them all!
+ And even when she left my side,
+ We didn't wait to fret or pine,
+ Oh, no; we said the world was wide,
+ And luck would turn, old pipe of mine!
+
+
+
+
+CANNON SONG.
+
+
+ And it has turned since you and I
+ Set out to face the world alone;
+ And, in a garret near the sky,
+ Had scarce a crust to call our own,
+ But many a banquet, Barmecide;
+ And many a dream of hope divine,
+ Lie buried in the moaning tide,
+ That drowns the past, old pipe of mine!
+
+ But prosing isn't quite the thing,
+ And so, I guess, I'll give it up:
+ Just wait a moment while I sing;
+ We'll have another parting cup,
+ And then to bed. The stars are low;
+ Yon sickly moon has ceased to shine;
+ So here she goes, and off we go
+ To Slumberland, old pipe of mine!
+
+JOHN J. GORMLEY.
+
+
+
+
+CANNON SONG.
+
+ Come, seniors, come, and fill your pipes,
+ Your richest incense raise;
+ Let's take a smoke, a parting smoke,
+ For good old by-gone days!
+
+ _Chorus_. For good old by-gone days,
+ We'll smoke for good old by-gone days!
+ We'll take a smoke, a parting smoke,
+ For good old by-gone days!
+
+ We'll crown the cannon with a cloud,
+ We'll celebrate its praise;
+ Recalling _its_ old parting smoke,
+ For good old by-gone days!
+
+ We'll smoke to these we leave behind
+ In devious college ways;
+ We'll smoke to songs we've sung before,
+ In good old by-gone days.
+
+ We'll smoke to _Alma Mater's_ name;
+ She loves the cloud we raise!
+ For well she knows the "biggest guns"
+ Are in the coming days!
+
+ We'll smoke the times, the good old times,
+ When we were called _fire_!
+ Their light shall blaze in memory,
+ Till the lamp of life expire!
+
+ Then let each smoking pipe be broke,--
+ Hurrah for coming days!
+ We'll take a march, a merry march,
+ To meet the coming days!
+
+H.P. PECK.
+
+
+
+
+TOBACCO.
+
+
+ The Indian weed, withered quite,
+ Green at noon, cut down at night,
+ Shows thy decay; all flesh is hay,
+ Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.
+
+ The pipe that is so lily-white,
+ Shows thee to be a mortal wight;
+ And even such, gone with a touch,
+ Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.
+
+ And when the smoke ascends on high,
+ Thinke thou beholdst the vanity
+ Of worldly stuffe, gone with a puffe,
+ Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.
+
+ And when the pipe grows foul within,
+ Think on thy soule defil'd with sin,
+ And then the fire it doth require.
+ Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.
+
+ The ashes that are left behind,
+ May serve to put thee still in mind,
+ That unto dust return thou must.
+ Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.
+
+GEORGE WITHER, 1620.
+
+
+
+
+VIRGINIA'S KINGLY PLANT.
+
+_BY AN "OLD SALT."_
+
+
+ Oh, muse! grant me the power
+ (I have the will) to sing
+ How oft in lonely hour,
+ When storms would round me lower,
+ Tobacco's proved a king!
+
+ Philanthropists, no doubt
+ With good intentions ripe,
+ Their dogmas may put out,
+ And arrogantly shout
+ The evils of the pipe.
+
+ Kind moralists, with tracts,
+ Opinions fine may show;
+ Produce a thousand facts,--
+ How ill tobacco acts
+ Man's system to o'erthrow.
+
+ Learn'd doctors have employed
+ Much patience, time, and skill,
+ To prove tobacco cloyed
+ With acrid alkaloid,
+ With power the nerves to kill.
+
+ E'en popes have curst the plant;
+ Kings bade its use to cease;
+ But all the pontiff's rant
+ And royal James's cant
+ Ne'er made its use decrease.
+
+ Teetotalers may stamp
+ And roar at pipes and beer;
+ But place them in a swamp,
+ When nights are dark and damp,--
+ Their tunes would change, I fear.
+
+ No advocate am I
+ Of excess in one or t'other,
+ And ne'er essayed to try
+ In wine to drown a sigh,
+ Or a single care to smother.
+
+ Yet, in moderation pure,
+ A glass is well enough;
+ But a troubled heart to cure,
+ Kind feelings to insure,
+ Give me a cheerful puff.
+
+ How oft a learn'd divine
+ His sermons will prepare,
+ Not by imbibing wine,
+ But 'neath th' influence fine
+ Of a pipe of "baccy" rare!
+
+ How many a pleasing scene,
+ How many a happy joke,
+ How many a satire keen,
+ Or problem sharp, has been
+ Evolved or born of smoke!
+
+ How oft amidst the jar,
+ Of storms on ruin bent,
+ On shipboard, near or far,
+ To the drenched and shiv'ring tar,
+ Tobacco's solace lent!
+
+ Oh, tell me not 'tis bad,
+ Or that it shortens life!
+ Its charms can soothe the sad,
+ And make the wretched glad,
+ In trouble and in strife.
+
+ 'Tis used in every clime,
+ By all men, high and low;
+ It is praised in prose and rhyme,
+ And can but end with time;
+ So let the kind herb grow!
+
+ 'Tis a friend to the distress'd;
+ 'Tis a comforter in need;
+ It is social, soothing, blest;
+ It has fragrance, force, and zest;
+ Then hail the kingly weed!
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+TOO GREAT A SACRIFICE.
+
+
+ The maid, as by the papers doth appear,
+ Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear,
+ To test Lothario's passion, simply said,
+ "Forego the weed before we go to wed.
+ For smoke, take flame; I'll be that flame's bright fanner.
+ To have your Anna, give up your Havana."
+ But he, when thus she brought him to the scratch,
+ Lit his cigar, and threw away his match.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+TO A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Come, lovely tube, by friendship blest,
+ Belov'd and honored by the wise,
+ Come filled with honest "Weekly's best,"
+ And kindled from the lofty skies.
+
+ While round me clouds of incense roll,
+ With guiltless joys you charm the sense,
+ And nobler pleasure to the soul
+ In hints of moral truth dispense.
+
+ Soon as you feel th' enliv'ning ray,
+ To dust you hasten to return,
+ And teach me that my earliest day
+ Began to give me to the urn.
+
+ But though thy grosser substance sink
+ To dust, thy purer part aspires;
+ This when I see, I joy to think
+ That earth but half of me requires.
+
+ Like thee, myself am born to die,
+ Made half to rise, and half to fall.
+ Oh, could I, while my moments fly,
+ The bliss you give me give to all!
+
+_Gentleman's Magazine_, July, 1745.
+
+
+
+
+ In the smoke of my dear cigarito
+ Cloud castles rise gorgeous and tall;
+ And Eros, divine muchachito,
+ With smiles hovers over it all.
+
+ But dreaming, forgetting to cherish
+ The fire at my lips as it dies,
+ The dream and the rapture must perish,
+ And Eros descend from the skies.
+
+ O wicked and false muchachito,
+ Your rapture I yet may recall;
+ But, like my re-lit cigarito,
+ A bitterness tinges it all.
+
+CAMILLA K. VON K.
+
+
+
+
+A GOOD CIGAR.
+
+
+ Oh, 'tis well and enough,
+ A whiff or a puff
+ From the heart of a pipe to get;
+ And a dainty maid
+ Or a budding blade
+ May toy with the cigarette;
+ But a man, when the time
+ Of a glorious prime
+ Dawns forth like a morning star,
+ Wants the dark-brown bloom
+ And the sweet perfume
+ That go with a good cigar.
+
+ To lazily float
+ In a painted boat
+ On a shimmering morning sea,
+ Or to flirt with a maid
+ In the afternoon shade
+ Seems good enough sport to be;
+ But the evening hour,
+ With its subtle power,
+ Is sweeter and better far,
+ If joined to the joy,
+ Devoid of alloy,
+ That lurks in a good cigar.
+
+ When a blanket wet
+ Is solidly set
+ O'er hopes prematurely grown;
+ When ambition is tame,
+ And energy lame,
+ And the bloom from the fruit is blown;
+ When to dance and to dine
+ With women and wine
+ Past poverty pleasures are,--
+ A man's not bereft
+ Of all peace, if there's left
+ The joy of a good cigar.
+
+NORRIS BULL.
+
+
+
+
+ A glass is good, and a lass is good,
+ And a pipe to smoke in cold weather;
+ The world is good, and the people are good,
+ And we're all good fellows together.
+
+JOHN O'KEEFE: _Sprigs of Laurel_, Act ii. sc. i.
+
+
+
+
+MY FRIENDLY PIPE.
+
+
+ Let sybarites still dream delights
+ While smoking cigarettes,
+ Whose opiates get in their pates
+ Till waking brings regrets;
+ Oh, let them doze, devoid of woes,
+ Of troubles, and of frets.
+
+ And let the chap who loves to nap
+ With his cigar in hand
+ Pursue his way, and live his day,
+ As runs time's changing sand;
+ Let him delight by day and night
+ In his peculiar brand.
+
+ But as for me, I love to be
+ Provided with a pipe,--
+ A rare old bowl to warm my soul,
+ A meerschaum brown and ripe,--
+ With good plug cut, no stump or butt,
+ Nor filthy gutter-snipe.
+
+ My joys increase! It brings me peace
+ As nothing else can do;
+ From all the strife of daily life
+ Here my relief is true.
+ I watch its rings; it purrs and sings--
+ And then it's cheaper, too!
+
+_Detroit Tribune_.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Come then, Tobacco, new-found friend,
+ Come, and thy suppliant attend
+ In each dull, lonely hour;
+ And though misfortunes lie around,
+ Thicker than hailstones on the ground,
+ I'll rest upon thy power.
+ Then while the coxcomb, pert and proud,
+ The politician, learned and loud,
+ Keep one eternal clack,
+ I'll tread where silent Nature smiles,
+ Where Solitude our woe beguiles,
+ And chew thee, dear Tobac.
+
+DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+
+
+
+A BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY.
+
+
+ I sit all alone with my pipe by the fire,
+ I ne'er knew the Benedict's yoke;
+ I worship a fairy-like, fanciful form,
+ That goes up the chimney in smoke.
+
+ I sit in my dressing-gowned slipperful ease,
+ Without wife or bairns to provoke,
+ And puff at my pipe, while my hopes and my fears
+ All go up the chimney in smoke.
+
+ I sit with my pipe, and my heart's lonesome care
+ I try, but all vainly, to choke.
+ Ah, me! but I find that the flame that Love lights
+ Won't go up the chimney in smoke.
+
+_Cigar and Tobacco World_, London.
+
+
+
+
+THE DREAMER'S PIPE.
+
+
+ Meerschaum, thing with amber tip,
+ Clutched between the dreamer's lip,
+ Fragrant odors from thy bowl
+ Mingling with the dreamer's soul;
+ Curling wreaths of smoke ascending,
+ Comfort sweet with incense blending.
+ Joy and peace and solace sending
+ To the dreamer's heart.
+
+ Fashioned like a satyr's head,
+ Crowned with fire, glowing red,
+ Quaintly carved and softly sleek
+ As Afric maiden's downy cheek.
+ Comrade of each idle hour
+ In forest shade or leafy bower;
+ Lotus-eaters from thy power
+ Ne'er can break apart.
+
+ Darkly colored from long use
+ With tobacco's balmy juice
+ From snowy white to ebon turned
+ By the incense daily burned.
+ Laid at night within thy case
+ Of velvet soft--thy resting place--
+ Whence with leering, stained face
+ Daily thou must start,--
+
+ To soothe the dreamer's every care,
+ To glow and burn and fill the air
+ With thy curling perfume rare:
+ As thou charmest gloom away,
+ With the dreamer rest for aye
+ Friend of youth, and manhood ripe
+ All hail to thee, thou meerschaum pipe!
+
+_New Orleans Times Democrat._
+
+
+
+
+SUBLIME TOBACCO.
+
+
+ But here the herald of the self-same mouth
+ Came breathing o'er the aromatic South,
+ Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale,
+ But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
+ Borne from a short, frail pipe, which yet had blown
+ Its gentle odors over either zone,
+ And, puff'd where'er minds rise or waters roll,
+ Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
+ Opposed its vapor as the lightning flash'd,
+ And reek'd, 'midst mountain billows unabashed,
+ To AEolus a constant sacrifice,
+ Through every change of all the varying skies.
+ And what was he who bore it? I may err,
+ But deem him sailor or philosopher.
+ Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
+ Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest;
+ Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides
+ His hours, and rivals opiums and his brides;
+ Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
+ Though not less loved, in Wapping on the Strand;
+ Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe,
+ When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
+ Like other charmers, wooing the caress
+ More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
+ Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
+ Thy naked beauties,--give me a cigar!
+
+LORD BYRON:
+
+_The Island, Canto ii., Stanza 19._
+
+
+
+
+SMOKING AWAY.
+
+
+ Floating away like the fountains' spray,
+ Or the snow-white plume of a maiden,
+ The smoke-wreaths rise to the starlit skies
+ With blissful fragrance laden.
+
+ _Chorus._ Then smoke away till a golden ray
+ Lights up the dawn of the morrow,
+ For a cheerful cigar, like a shield, will bar,
+ The blows of care and sorrow.
+
+ The leaf burns bright, like the gems of light
+ That flash in the braids of Beauty;
+ It nerves each heart for the hero's part
+ On the battle-plain of duty.
+
+ In the thoughtful gloom of his darkened room,
+ Sits the child of song and story,
+ But his heart is light, for his pipe burns bright,
+ And his dreams are all of glory.
+
+ By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire,
+ And infant arras surround him;
+ And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall,
+ While the smoke-curls float around him.
+
+ In the forest grand of our native land,
+ When the savage conflict ended,
+ The "pipe of peace" brought a sweet release
+ From toil and terror blended.
+
+ The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain
+ 'Neath their arbor shades trip lightly,
+ And a gleaming cigar, like a new-born star,
+ In the clasp of their lips burns brightly
+
+ It warms the soul like the blushing bowl,
+ With its rose-red burden streaming,
+ And drowns it in bliss, like the first warm kiss
+ From the lips with love-buds teeming.
+
+FRANCIS MILES FINCH.
+
+
+
+
+A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
+
+
+ May the Babylonish curse
+ Straight confound my stammering verse
+ If I can a passage see
+ In this word-perplexity,
+ Or a fit expression find,
+ Or a language to my mind
+ (Still the phrase is wide or scant),
+ To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!
+ Or in any terms relate
+ Half my love, or half my hate:
+ For I hate, yet love, thee so,
+ That, whichever thing I show,
+ The plain truth will seem to be
+ A constrain'd hyperbole,
+ And the passion to proceed
+ More from a mistress than a weed.
+
+ Sooty retainer to the vine,
+ Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;
+ Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon
+ Thy begrimed complexion,
+ And, for thy pernicious sake,
+ More and greater oaths to break
+ Than reclaimed lovers take
+ 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay
+ Much too in the female way,
+ While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
+ Faster than kisses or than death.
+
+ Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,
+ That our worst foes cannot find us,
+ And ill-fortune, that would thwart us,
+ Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
+ While each man, through thy height'ning steam
+ Does like a smoking Etna seem,
+ And all about us does express
+ (Fancy and wit in richest dress)
+ A Sicilian fruitfulness.
+
+ Thou through such a mist dost show us,
+ That our best friends do not know us,
+ And, for those allowed features,
+ Due to reasonable creatures,
+ Liken'st us to fell Chimeras,
+ Monsters that, who see us, fear us;
+ Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
+ Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.
+
+ Bacchus we know, and we allow
+ His tipsy rites. But what art thou,
+ That but by reflex canst show
+ What his deity can do,
+ As the false Egyptian spell
+ Aped the true Hebrew miracle,
+ Some few vapors thou mayst raise
+ The weak brain may serve to amaze,
+ But to the reins and nobler heart
+ Canst nor life nor heat impart.
+
+ Brother of Bacchus, later born,
+ The Old World was sure forlorn
+ Wanting thee, that aidest more
+ The god's victories than before
+ All his panthers, and the brawls
+ Of his piping Bacchanals.
+ These, as stale, we disallow,
+ Or judge of _thee_ meant; only thou
+ His true Indian conquest art;
+ And for ivy round his dart
+ The reformed god now weaves
+ A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
+
+ Scent to match thy rich perfume
+ Chemic art did ne'er presume,
+ Through her quaint alembic strain,
+ None so sov'reign to the brain.
+ Nature, that did in thee excel,
+ Framed again no second smell.
+ Roses, violets, but toys
+ For the smaller sort of boys,
+ Or for greener damsels meant;
+ Thou art the only manly scent.
+
+ Stinking'st of the stinking kind,
+ Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind,
+ Africa, that brags her foison,
+ Breeds no such prodigious poison,
+ Henbane, nightshade, both together,
+ Hemlock, aconite--
+
+ Nay, rather,
+ Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
+ Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.
+ 'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee;
+ None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee;
+ Irony all, and feign'd abuse,
+ Such as perplex'd lovers use
+ At a need when, in despair
+ To paint forth their fairest fair,
+ Or in part but to express
+ That exceeding comeliness
+ Which their fancies doth so strike,
+ They borrow language of dislike;
+ And, instead of Dearest Miss,
+ Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,
+ And those forms of old admiring,
+ Call her Cockatrice and Siren,
+ Basilisk, and all that's evil,
+ Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
+ Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamore,
+ Monkey, Ape, and twenty more,
+ Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,--
+ Not that she is truly so,
+ But no other way they know
+ A contentment to express,
+ Borders so upon excess
+ That they do not rightly wot
+ Whether it be pain or not.
+
+ Or as men, constrain'd to part
+ With what's nearest to their heart.
+ While their sorrow's at the height
+ Lose discrimination quite,
+ And their hasty wrath let fall,
+ To appease their frantic gall,
+ On the darling thing whatever
+ Whence they feel it death to sever,
+ Though it be, as they, perforce,
+ Guiltless of the sad divorce.
+
+ For I must (nor let it grieve thee,
+ Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee.
+ For thy sake, TOBACCO, I
+ Would do anything but die,
+ And but seek to extend my days
+ Long enough to sing thy praise.
+ But as she who once hath been
+ A king's consort is a queen
+ Ever after, nor will bate
+ Any tittle of her state,
+ Though a widow or divorced,
+ So I, from thy converse forced,
+ The old name and style retain,
+ A right Katherine of Spain;
+ And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
+ Of the blest Tobacco Boys,
+ Where, though I by sour physician
+ Am debarr'd the full fruition
+ Of thy favors, I may catch
+ Some collateral sweets, and snatch
+ Sidelong odors, that give life
+ Like glances from a neighbor's wife,
+ And still live in the by-places
+ And the suburbs of thy graces,
+ And in thy borders take delight,
+ An unconquer'd Canaanite.
+
+CHARLES LAMB.
+
+
+
+
+A WINTER EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE.
+
+
+ Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
+ Than all the grape's bewildering juice,
+ We worship, unforbid of thee;
+ And as her incense floats and curls
+ In airy spires and wayward whirls,
+ Or poises on its tremulous stalk
+ A flower of frailest reverie,
+ So winds and loiters, idly free,
+ The current of unguided talk,
+ Now laughter-rippled, and now caught
+ In smooth dark pools of deeper thought
+ Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,
+ A sweetly unobtrusive third;
+ For thou hast magic beyond wine
+ To unlock natures each to each;
+ The unspoken thought thou canst divine;
+ Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech
+ With whispers that to dreamland reach,
+ And frozen fancy-springs unchain
+ In Arctic outskirts of the brain.
+ Sun of all inmost confidences,
+ To thy rays doth the heart unclose
+ Its formal calyx of pretences,
+ That close against rude day's offences,
+ And open its shy midnight rose!
+
+JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+MY PIPE AND I.
+
+
+ There may be comrades in this world,
+ As stanch and true as steel.
+ There are: and by their friendships firm
+ Is life made only real.
+ But, after all, of all these hearts
+ That close with mine entwine,
+ None lie so near, nor seem so dear
+ As this old pipe of mine.
+
+ My silent friend--whose voice is held
+ Fast for my ear alone--
+ Stays with me always, well content,
+ With Darby to be Joan.
+ No fickleness disturbs our lot;
+ No jars its peace to smother;
+ Ah, no; my faithful pipe and I
+ Have wooed and won--each other.
+
+ On clouds of curling incense sweet,
+ We go--my pipe and I--
+ To lands far off, where skies stay blue
+ Through all the years that fly.
+ And nights and days, with rosy dreams
+ Teems bright--an endless throng
+ That passing leave, in echoing wake,
+ Soft murmurings of song.
+
+ Does this dream fade? Another comes
+ To fill its place and more.
+ In castles silvern roam we now,
+ They're ours! All! All are ours!
+ What'er the wreathing rings enfold
+ Drops shimmering golden showers!
+
+ No sordid cost our steps can stay,
+ We travel free as air.
+ Our wings are fancies, incense-borne,
+ That feather-light upbear.
+ Begone! ye powers of steam and flood.
+ Thy roads creep far too slow;
+ We need thee not. My pipe and I
+ Swifter than Time must go.
+
+ Why, what is this? The pipe gone out?
+ Well, well, the fire's out, too!
+ The dreams are gone--we're poor once more;
+ Life's pain begins anew.
+ 'Tis time for sleep, my faithful pipe,
+ But may thy dreamings be,
+ Through slumbering hours hued as bright
+ As those thou gav'st to me!
+
+ELTON J. BUCKLEY.
+
+
+
+
+SIC TRANSIT.
+
+ Just a note that I found on my table,
+ By the bills of a year buried o'er,
+ In a feminine hand and requesting
+ My presence for tennis at four.
+
+ Half remorseful for leaving it lying
+ In surroundings unworthy as those,
+ I carefully dusted and smoothed it,
+ And mutely begged pardon of Rose.
+
+ But I thought with a smile of the proverb
+ Which says you may treat as you will
+ The vase which has once contained roses,
+ Their fragrance will cling to it still.
+
+ For the writer I scarcely remember,
+ The occasion has vanished afar,
+ And the fragrance that clings to the letter
+ Recalls--an Havana cigar.
+
+W.B. ANDERSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE BETROTHED.
+
+"_YOU MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN ME AND YOUR CIGAR._"
+
+ Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
+ For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
+
+ We quarrelled about Havanas--we fought o'er a good cheroot,
+ And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
+
+ Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a space;
+ In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face.
+
+ Maggie is pretty to look at,--Maggie's a loving lass,
+ But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must
+ pass.
+
+ There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay,
+ But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away,--
+
+ Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown,--
+ But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!
+
+ Maggie my wife at fifty,--gray and dour and old,--
+ With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
+
+ And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
+ And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead
+ cigar,--
+
+ The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket,--
+ With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the
+ socket.
+
+ Open the old cigar-box,--let me consider a while,--
+ Here is a mild Manilla,--there is a wifely smile.
+
+ Which is the better portion,--bondage bought with a ring,
+ Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
+
+ Counsellors cunning and silent--comforters true and tried,
+ And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.
+
+ Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
+ Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.
+
+ This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
+ With only a _Suttee's_ passion,--to do their duty and burn.
+
+ This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
+ Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
+
+ The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
+ When they hear my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.
+
+ I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths
+ withal,
+ So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
+
+ I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their
+ hides,
+ And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy, who read of the tale of my
+ brides.
+
+ For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
+ The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.
+
+ And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelve-month clear.
+ But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;
+
+ And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
+ Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and
+ Fight.
+
+ And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
+ But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.
+
+ Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the
+ mire?
+ Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful
+ fire?
+
+ Open the old cigar-box,--let me consider anew,--
+ Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon _you_?
+
+ A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
+ And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
+
+ Light me another Cuba: I hold to my first-sworn vows,
+ If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!
+
+RUDYARD KIPLING.
+
+
+
+
+ON A BROKEN PIPE.
+
+
+ Neglected now it lies, a cold clay form,
+ So late with living inspirations warm;
+ Type of all other creatures formed of clay--
+ What more than it for epitaph have they?
+
+
+
+
+A VALENTINE.
+
+
+ What's my love's name? Guess her name.
+ Nina? No.
+ Alina? No.
+ It does end with "ina," though.
+ Guess again. Christina? No;
+ Guess again. Wilhelmina? No.
+ She reciprocates my flame,
+ Cheers me wheresoe'er I go,
+ Never forward, never coy,
+ She is evermore my joy.
+ Oh, the rapture! oh, the bliss!
+ When I met my darling's kiss.
+ Oh, I love her form to greet!
+ Oh, her breath is passing sweet!
+ Who could help but love her so?
+ Nicotina, mistress mine,
+ Thou shall be my Valentine.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+MY CIGARETTE.
+
+
+ My cigarette! The amulet
+ That charms afar unrest and sorrow,
+ The magic wand that, far beyond
+ To-day, can conjure up to-morrow.
+ Like love's desire, thy crown of fire
+ So softly with the twilight blending;
+ And ah, meseems a poet's dreams
+ Are in thy wreaths of smoke ascending.
+
+ My cigarette! Can I forget
+ How Kate and I, in sunny weather,
+ Sat in the shade the elm-tree made
+ And rolled the fragrant weed together?
+ I at her side, beatified
+ To hold and guide her fingers willing;
+ She rolling slow the papers snow,
+ Putting my heart in with the filling.
+
+ My cigarette! I see her yet,
+ The white smoke from her red lips curling,
+ Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies,
+ Her gentle sighs, her laughter purling!
+ Ah, dainty roll, whose parting soul
+ Ebbs out in many a snowy billow,
+ I too would burn, if I could earn
+ Upon her lips so soft a pillow.
+
+ Ah, cigarette! The gay coquette
+ Has long forgot the flame she lighted;
+ And you and I unthinking by
+ Alike are thrown, alike are slighted.
+ The darkness gathers fast without,
+ A raindrop on my window plashes;
+ My cigarette and heart are out,
+ And naught is left me but the ashes.
+
+CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPE CRITIC.
+
+
+ Say, pipe, let's talk of love;
+ Canst aid me? By my life,
+ I'll ask not gods above
+ To help me choose a wife;
+ But to thy gentle self I'll give the puzzling strife.
+
+ Thy color let me find,
+ And blue like smoke her eyes;
+ A healthy store her mind
+ As that which in thee lies,--
+ An evanescent draft, whose incense mounts the skies.
+
+ And, pipe, a breath like thine;
+ Her hair an amber gold,
+ And wrought in shapes as fine
+ As that which now I hold;
+ A grace in every limb, her form thy slender mould.
+
+ And when her lips I kiss,
+ Oh, may she burn like thee,
+ And strive to give me bliss!
+ A comforter to be
+ When friends wax cold, time fades, and all departs from me.
+
+ And may she hide in smoke,
+ As you, my friend, have done,
+ The failings that would choke
+ My virtues every one,
+ Turn grief to laughing jest, or painful thought to fun.
+
+ Her aid be such as thine
+ To stir my brain a bit.
+ When 'round this hearth of mine
+ Friends sit and banter wit,
+ She'll shape a well-turned phrase, a subtle jest to hit.
+
+ In short, my sole delight
+ (Why, pipe, you sputter so!),
+ Whose angel visage bright
+ (And at me ashes throw!)
+ Shall never rival fear. You're jealous now, I know.
+
+ Nay, pipe, I'll not leave thee;
+ For of thy gifts there's one
+ That's passing dear to me
+ Whose equal she'd have none,--
+ The gift of peace serene; she'd have, alas, a tongue!
+
+WALTER LITTLEFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+A SONG WITHOUT A NAME.
+
+AIR: "_THE VICAR OF BRAY_."
+
+
+ 'Twas in Queen Bess's golden days
+ That smoking came in fashion;
+ And from the court it quickly spread
+ Throughout the English nation.
+ The courtiers first the lesson learnt,
+ And burn'd the fragrant treasure;
+ And e'en the queen herself, 'tis said,
+ Would sometimes share the pleasure.
+ But this is true, I will maintain,--
+ And I am far from joking,--
+ Of all the pleasures men have found
+ There's none to equal smoking.
+
+ Then learned men and lawyers wise
+ And grave divines and doctors
+ Found smoking help'd to clear the brain,
+ And puff'd away in flocks, sirs;
+ Then business men and humble clerks
+ And laborer and peasant
+ By smoking care would drive away,
+ And make this life more pleasant.
+ For this is true. I will maintain,--
+ And I am far from joking,--
+ Of all the pleasures men have found
+ There's none to equal smoking.
+
+ And from these times we modern men
+ Great glory do inherit,
+ And wealth and learning and the strength
+ Which makes the English spirit.
+ We have no care, we fear no foe,
+ We pass our lifetime gayly,
+ But little think how much we owe
+ To great Sir Walter Raleigh.
+ For this is true, I will maintain,--
+ And I am far from joking,--
+ Of all the pleasures men have found
+ There's none to equal smoking.
+
+W. LLOYD.
+
+
+
+
+AD NICOTINA.
+
+"_A CONSTRAINED HYPERBOLE._"
+
+
+ Let others sing the praise of wine;
+ I'll tolerate no queen
+ But one fair nymph of spotless line,
+ The gentle Nicotine.
+ Her breath's as sweet as any flower's,
+ No matter where it blows,
+ And makes this dull old world of ours
+ The color of the rose.
+
+ There's not a pang but she can soothe,
+ Nor spell but she can break,
+ And e'en the hardest lot can smooth,
+ And bid us courage take.
+ Fair Nicotine! thou dost atone
+ For many an aching heart;
+ And I for one will gladly own
+ The magic of thine art.
+
+ Ah, "friendly traitress," "loving foe,"
+ Forgive this loving lay;
+ For I, thy worshipper, would show
+ The sweetness of thy sway.
+ "Sublime tobacco!" may thy reign
+ Ne'er for one moment cease;
+ For thou, Great Plant, art kin to brain,
+ And synonym for peace.
+
+E.H.S.
+
+
+
+
+MEERSCHAUM.
+
+
+ Come to me, O my meerschaum,
+ For the vile street organs play;
+ And the torture they're inflicting
+ Will vanish quite away.
+
+ I open my study window
+ And into the twilight peer,
+ And my anxious eyes are watching
+ For the man with my evening beer.
+
+ In one hand is the shining pewter,
+ All amber the ale doth glow;
+ In t'other are long "churchwardens,"
+ As spotless and pure as snow.
+
+ Ah! what would the world be to us
+ Tobaccoless?--Fearful bore!
+ We should dread the day after to-morrow
+ Worse than the day before.
+
+ As the elephant's trunk to the creature,
+ Is the pipe to the man, I trow;
+ Useful and meditative
+ As the cud to the peaceful cow.
+
+ So to the world is smoking;
+ Through that we feel, with bliss
+ That, whatever worlds come after,
+ A jolly old world is this.
+
+ Come to me, O my meerschaum,
+ And whisper to me here,
+ If you like me better than coffee,
+ Than grog, or the bitter beer.
+
+ Oh! what are our biggest winnings,
+ If peaceful content we miss?
+ Though fortune may give us an innings
+ She seldom conveys us bliss.
+
+ You're better than all the fortunes
+ That ever were made or broke;
+ For a penny will always fill
+ And buy me content with a smoke.
+
+WRONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+ I like cigars
+ Beneath the stars,
+ Upon the waters blue.
+ To laugh and float
+ While rocks the boat
+ Upon the waves,--Don't you?
+
+ To rest the oar
+ And float to shore,--
+ While soft the moonbeams shine,--
+ To laugh and joke,
+ And idly smoke;
+ I think is quite divine.
+
+ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+
+
+"A FREE PUFF."
+
+
+ Do you remember when first we met?
+ I was turning twenty--well! I don't forget
+ How I walked along,
+ Humming a song
+ Across the fields and down the lane
+ By the country road, and back again
+ To the dear old farm--three miles or more--
+ And brought you home from the village store.
+
+ Summer was passing--don't you recall
+ The splendid harvest we had that Fall,
+ And how when the Autumn died,--sober and brown,--
+ We trudged down the turnpike, and on to the town?
+
+ Sweet black brierwood pipe of mine!
+ If you were human you'd be half divine,
+ For when I've looked beyond the smoke, into your burning bowl
+ In times of need
+ You've been, indeed,
+ The only comfort, sweetest solace, of my overflowing soul.
+ We've been together nearly thirty years, old fellow!
+ And now, you must admit, we're both a trifle mellow.
+ We have had our share of joys and a deal of sorrows,
+ And while we're only waiting for a few more to-morrows,
+ Others will come, and others will go,
+ And Time will gather what Youth will sow;
+ But we together will go down the rough
+ Road to the end, and to the end--puff.
+
+ARTHUR IRVING GRAY.
+
+
+
+
+MY MEERSCHAUM PIPE.
+
+
+ Old meerschaum pipe, I'll fondly wipe
+ Thy scarred and blackened form,
+ For thou to me wilt ever be--
+ Whate'er betides the storm--
+ A casket filled with memories
+ Of life's Auroral morn.
+
+ Thou once wert fair like ivory rare;
+ Spotless as lily white;
+ Thy curving lines, like tendril'd vines,
+ Were pleasing to the sight,
+ And in thine ample bowl there lurked
+ A promise of delight.
+
+ Like incense flung from censer swung
+ Before some sculptured shrine,
+ To float along with prayer and song
+ To realms of bliss divine,--
+ Ascend thy fragrant wreaths of smoke
+ And with my thoughts entwine.
+
+ Old pipe, old friend, o'er thee doth bend
+ The rainbow hues of life,
+ While sorrows roll across my soul,
+ And peace is turned to strife,
+ And Faith drifts o'er a sea of doubt
+ With desolation rife.
+
+ Alas, that man or pipe e'er can
+ Wax old or know decay;
+ Alas, that heart from heart must part,
+ Or Love can lose its sway.
+ And death in life should cast its pall
+ Athwart the troubled way.
+
+ Tho' love be cross'd, and friends are lost,
+ And severed every tie;
+ Tho' hopes are dead and joys have fled,
+ And darkened is the sky;
+ We yet can warm each other's hearts,
+ Old meerschaum pipe and I.
+
+JOHNSON M. MUNDY.
+
+
+
+
+A WARNING.
+
+
+HE.
+
+ I loathe all books. I hate to see
+ The world and men through others' eyes;
+ My own are good enough for me.
+ These scribbling fellows I despise;
+ They bore me.
+ I used to try to read a bit,
+ But, when I did, a sleepy fit
+ Came o'er me.
+
+ Yet here I sit with pensive look,
+ Filling my pipe with fragrant loads,
+ Gazing in rapture at a book!--
+ A free translation of the Odes
+ Of Horace.
+ 'Tis owned by sweet Elizabeth,
+ And breathes a subtle, fragrant breath
+ Of orris.
+
+ I longed for something that was hers
+ To cheer me when I'm feeling low;
+ I saw this book of paltry verse,
+ And asked to take it home--and so
+ She lent it.
+ I love her deep and tenderly,
+ Yet dare not tell my love, lest she
+ Resent it.
+
+ I'll learn to quote a stanza here,
+ A couplet there. I'm very sure
+ 'Twould aid my suit could I appear
+ _Au fait_ in books and literature.
+ I'll do it!
+ This jingle I can quickly learn;
+ Then, hid in roses, I'll return
+ Her poet!
+
+
+SHE.
+
+ The hateful man! 'Twould vex a saint!
+ Around my pretty, cherished book,
+ The odor vile, the noisome taint
+ Of horrid, stale tobacco-smoke
+ Yet lingers!
+ The hateful man, my book to spoil!
+ Patrick, the tongs--lest I should soil
+ My fingers!
+
+ This lovely rose, these lilies frail,
+ These violets he has sent to me
+ The odor of his pipe exhale!
+ Am I to blame that I should be
+ Enraged?
+ Tell Mr. Simpson every time
+ He calls upon me, Patrick, I'm
+ Engaged!
+
+ARTHUR LOVELL.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON.
+
+
+ Says the Pipe to the Snuff-box, "I can't understand
+ What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
+ That you are in fashion all over the land,
+ And I am so much fallen into disgrace.
+
+ "Do but see what a pretty contemplative air
+ I give to the company,--pray do but note 'em,--
+ You would think that the wise men of Greece were all there,
+ Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.
+
+ "My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown roses,
+ While you are a nuisance where'er you appear;
+ There is nothing but snivelling and blowing of noses,
+ Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to hear."
+
+ Then, lifting his lid in a delicate way,
+ And opening his mouth with a smile quite engaging.
+ The Box in reply was heard plainly to say,
+ "What a silly dispute is this we are Waging!
+
+ "If you have a little of merit to claim,
+ You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian weed;
+ And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,
+ The before-mentioned drug in apology plead.
+
+ "Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own,
+ No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus;
+ We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,
+ But of anything else they may choose to put in us."
+
+WM. COWPER.
+
+
+
+
+A LOSS.
+
+
+ How hard a thing it is to part
+ From those we love and cherish;
+ How deeply does it pain one's heart
+ To know all things must perish!
+
+ And when a friend and comrade dear
+ Is lost to us forever,
+ We feel how frail are all things here,
+ Since e'en best friends must sever.
+
+ I, too, have lost a friend, who broke
+ Its power when care was near me;
+ And troubles disappeared in smoke
+ When he was by to cheer me.
+
+ But as friends fall when valued most,
+ Like fruit that over-ripe is.
+ My loved companion I have lost,--
+ That friend my meerschaum pipe is!
+
+_Judy_ (1873).
+
+
+
+
+THE TRUE LEUCOTHOE.
+
+
+ Let others praise the god of wine,
+ Or Venus, love, and beauty's smile;
+ I choose a theme not less divine,--
+ The plant that grows in Cuba's Isle.
+
+ The old Greeks err'd who bound with bays
+ Apollo's brow; the verdant crown
+ He wore, when measuring their days,
+ Grew in the West, where he went down.
+
+ An idle tale they also told;
+ They said he gave them frankincense,
+ Borne by some tree he loved of old;
+ If so, he gave a mere pretence.
+
+ For the true offspring of his love--
+ Tobacco--grew far o'er the sea,
+ Where Leucothoe from above
+ Led him as honey leads the bee,
+
+ Till on that plant he paus'd to gaze
+ Some moments ere he held his way,
+ And cheer her with his warmest rays,
+ Heedless of time or length of day.
+
+ Then with a sigh his brows he wreath'd
+ With leaves that care and toil beguile,
+ And bless'd, as their perfume he breath'd,
+ The plant that grows in Cuba's Isle.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+THOSE ASHES.
+
+
+ Up to the frescoed ceiling
+ The smoke of my cigarette
+ In a sinuous spray is reeling,
+ Forming flower and minaret.
+
+ What delicious landscape floating
+ On perfumed wings I see;
+ Pale swans I am idly noting,
+ And queens robed in filagree.
+
+ I see such delicious faces
+ As ne'er man saw before,
+ And my fancy fondly chases
+ Sweet maids on a fairy shore.
+
+ Now to bits my air-castle crashes,
+ And those pictures I see no more;
+ My grandmother yells: "Them ashes--
+ Don't drop them on the floor!"
+
+R.K. MUNKITTRICK.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT I LIKE.
+
+
+ To lie with half-closed eyes, as in a dream,
+ Upon the grassy bank of some calm stream--
+ And smoke.
+
+ To climb with daring feet some rugged rock,
+ And sit aloft where gulls and curlews flock--
+ And smoke.
+
+ To wander lonely on the ocean's brink,
+ And of the good old times to muse and think--
+ And smoke.
+
+ To hide me in some deep and woody glen,
+ Far from unhealthy haunts of sordid men--
+ And smoke.
+
+ To linger in some fairy haunted vale,
+ While all about me falls the moonlight pale--
+ And smoke.
+
+H.L.
+
+
+
+
+MY MEERSCHAUMS.
+
+
+ Long pipes and short ones, straight and curved,
+ High carved and plain, dark-hued and creamy,
+ Slim tubes for cigarettes reserved,
+ And stout ones for Havanas dreamy.
+
+ This cricket, on an amber spear
+ Impaled, recalls that golden weather
+ When love and I, too young to fear
+ Heartburn, smoked cigarettes together.
+
+ And even now--too old to take
+ The little papered shams for flavor--
+ I light it oft for her sweet sake
+ Who gave it, with her girlish favor.
+
+ And here's the mighty student bowl
+ Whose tutoring in and after college
+ Has led me nearer wisdom's goal
+ Than all I learned of text-book knowledge.
+
+ "It taught me?" Ay, to hold my tongue,
+ To keep a-light, and yet burn slowly,
+ To break ill spells around me flung
+ As with the enchanted whiff of Moly.
+
+ This nargileh, whose hue betrays
+ Perique from soft Louisiana,
+ In Egypt once beguiled the days
+ Of Tewfik's dreamy-eyed Sultana.
+
+ Speaking of color,--do you know
+ A maid with eyes as darkly splendid
+ As are the hues that, rich and slow,
+ On this Hungarian bowl have blended?
+
+ Can artist paint the fiery glints
+ Of this quaint finger here beside it,
+ With amber nail,--the lustrous tints,
+ A thousand Partagas have dyed it?
+
+ "And this old silver patched affair?"
+ Well, sir, that meerschaum has its reasons
+ For showing marks of time and wear;
+ For in its smoke through fifty seasons
+
+ My grandsire blew his cares away!
+ And then, when done with life's sojourning,
+ At seventy-five dropped dead one day,
+ That pipe between his set teeth burning!
+
+ "Killed him?" No doubt! it's apt to kill
+ In fifty year's incessant using--
+ Some twenty pipes a day. And still,
+ On that ripe, well-filled, lifetime musing,
+
+ I envy oft so bright a part,--
+ To live as long as life's a treasure;
+ To die of--not an aching heart,
+ But--half a century of pleasure!
+
+ Well, well! I'm boring you, no doubt;
+ How these old memories will undo one--
+ I see you've let your weed go out;
+ That's wrong! Here, light yourself a new one!
+
+CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Thou, who when fears attack
+ Bidst them avaunt, and Black
+ Care, at the horseman's back
+ Perching, unseatest;
+ Sweet when the morn is gray;
+ Sweet when they've cleared away
+ Lunch; and at close of day
+ Possibly sweetest!
+
+ I have a liking old
+ For thee, though manifold
+ Stories, I know, are told
+ Not to thy credit:
+ How one (or two at most)
+ Drops make a cat a ghost,--
+ Useless, except to roast--
+ Doctors have said it;
+
+ How they who use fusees
+ All grow by slow degrees
+ Brainless as chimpanzees,
+ Meagre as lizards,
+ Go mad, and beat their wives,
+ Plunge (after shocking lives)
+ Razors and carving-knives
+ Into their gizzards.
+
+ Confound such knavish tricks!
+ Yet know I five or six
+ Smokers who freely mix
+ Still with their neighbors,--
+ Jones, who, I'm glad to say,
+ Asked leave of Mrs. J.,
+ Daily absorbs a clay
+ After his labors.
+
+ Cats may have had their goose
+ Cooked by tobacco juice;
+ Still, why deny its use
+ Thoughtfully taken?
+ We're not as tabbies are;
+ Smith, take a fresh cigar!
+ Jones, the tobacco jar!
+ Here's to thee, Bacon!
+
+C.S. CALVERLY.
+
+
+
+
+ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE.
+
+
+ I lifted off the lid with anxious care,
+ Removed the wrappages, stripe after stripe,
+ And when the hidden contents were laid bare,
+ My first remark was: "Mercy, what a pipe!"
+
+ A pipe of symmetry that matched its size,
+ Mounted with metal bright,--a sight to see;
+ With the rich amber hue that smokers prize,
+ Attesting both its age and pedigree.
+
+ A pipe to make the royal Friedrich jealous,
+ Or the great Teufelsdroeckh with envy gripe!
+ A man should hold some rank above his fellows
+ To justify his smoking such a pipe!
+
+ What country gave it birth? What blest of cities
+ Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal?
+ What happy artist murmured, "Nunc dimittis,"
+ When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl?
+
+ Has it been hoarded in a monarch's treasures?
+ Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war?
+ Did the great Khalif in his "House of Pleasures"
+ Wager and lose it to the good Zaafar?
+
+ It may have soothed mild Spenser's melancholy,
+ While musing o'er traditions of the past,
+ Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter Raleigh,
+ Ere sage King Jamie blew his "_Counterblast_."
+
+ Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern,
+ Escape that monarch's pipoclastic ken?
+ Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern,
+ Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben?
+
+ Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creations
+ Loom through its smoke,--the spectre-haunted Thane,
+ The Sisters at their ghostly invocations,
+ The jealous Moor, and melancholy Dane.
+
+ Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets,
+ Titania may have led her elfin rout,
+ Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets,
+ Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out.
+
+ Vain are all fancies,--questions bring no answer;
+ The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains;
+ He were indeed a subtle necromancer,
+ Could read their records in its cloudy stains.
+
+ Nor this alone. Its destiny may doom it
+ To outlive e'en its use and history;
+ Some ploughman of the future may exhume it
+ From soil now deep beneath the Eastern sea.
+
+ And, treasured by soma antiquarian Stultus,
+ It may to gaping visitors be shown
+ Labelled: "The symbol of some ancient cultus
+ Conjecturally Phallic, but unknown."
+
+ Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel
+ Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things?
+ Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral
+ [Greek: Hos phyllon genee], as Homer sings?
+ '[Omega][sigmaf] [phi][upsilon][lambda][lambda][omega][nu]
+ [gamma][epsilon][nu][epsilon][eta], as Homer sings?
+
+ For this: Some links we forge are never broken;
+ Some feelings claim exemption from decay;
+ And Love, of which this pipe is but the token,
+ Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away.
+
+W.H.B.
+
+
+
+
+MY LITTLE BROWN PIPE.
+
+
+ I have a little comforter,
+ I carry in my pocket:
+ It is not any woman's face
+ Set in a golden locket;
+ It is not any kind of purse;
+ It is not book or letter,
+ But yet at times I really think
+ That it is something better.
+
+ Oh, my pipe, my little brown pipe!
+ How oft, at morning early,
+ When vexed with thoughts of coming toil,
+ And just a little surly,
+ I sit with thee till things get clear,
+ And all my plans grow steady,
+ And I can face the strife of life
+ With all my senses steady.
+
+ No matter if my temper stands
+ At stormy, fair, or clearing,
+ My pipe has not for any mood
+ A word of angry sneering.
+ I always find it just the same,
+ In care, or joy, or sorrow,
+ And what it is to-day I know
+ It's sure to be to-morrow.
+
+ It helps me through the stress of life;
+ It balances my losses;
+ It adds a charm to all my joys,
+ And lightens all my crosses.
+ For through the wreathing, misty veil
+ Joy has a softer splendor,
+ And life grows sweetly possible,
+ And love more truly tender.
+
+ Oh, I have many richer joys!
+ I do not underrate them,
+ And every man knows what I mean,
+ I do not need to state them.
+ But this I say,--I'd rather miss
+ A deal of what's called pleasure,
+ Than lose my little comforter,
+ My little smoky treasure.
+
+AMELIA E. BARR.
+
+
+
+
+ Forsaken of all comforts but these two,--
+ My fagot and my pipe--I sit to muse
+ On all my crosses, and almost excuse
+ The heavens for dealing with me as they do.
+ When Hope steps in, and, with a smiling brow,
+ Such cheerful expectations doth infuse
+ As makes me think ere long I cannot choose
+ But be some grandee, whatsoe'er I'm now.
+ But having spent my pipe, I then perceive
+ That hopes and dreams are cousins,--both deceive.
+ Then mark I this conclusion in my mind,
+ It's all one thing,--both tend into one scope,--
+ To live upon Tobacco and on Hope:
+ The one's but smoke, the other is but wind.
+
+SIR ROBERT AYTON.
+
+
+
+
+'TWAS OFF THE BLUE CANARIES.
+
+
+ 'Twas off the blue Canary isles,
+ A glorious summer day,
+ I sat upon the quarter deck,
+ And whiffed my cares away;
+ And as the volumed smoke arose,
+ Like incense in the air,
+ I breathed a sigh to think, in sooth,
+ It was my last cigar.
+
+ I leaned upon the quarter rail,
+ And looked down in the sea;
+ E'en there the purple wreath of smoke,
+ Was curling gracefully;
+ Oh! what had I at such a time
+ To do with wasting care?
+ Alas! the trembling tear proclaimed
+ It was my last cigar.
+
+ I watched the ashes as it came
+ Fast drawing toward the end;
+ I watched it as a friend would watch
+ Beside a dying friend;
+ But still the flame swept slowly on;
+ It vanished into air;
+ I threw it from me,--spare the tale,--
+ It was my last cigar.
+
+ I've seen the land of all I love
+ Fade in the distance dim;
+ I've watched above the blighted heart,
+ Where once proud hope hath been;
+ But I've never known a sorrow
+ That could with that compare,
+ When off the blue Canaries
+ I smoked my last cigar.
+
+JOSEPH WARREN FABENS.
+
+
+
+
+LATAKIA.
+
+
+I.
+
+ When all the panes are hung with frost,
+ Wild wizard-work of silver lace,
+ I draw my sofa on the rug,
+ Before the ancient chimney-place.
+ Upon the painted tiles are mosques
+ And minarets, and here and there
+ A blind muezzin lifts his hands,
+ And calls the faithful unto prayer.
+ Folded in idle, twilight dreams,
+ I hear the hemlock chirp and sing,
+ As if within its ruddy core
+ It held the happy heart of Spring.
+ Ferdousi never sang like that,
+ Nor Saadi grave, nor Hafiz gay;
+ I lounge, and blow white rings of smoke,
+ And watch them rise and float away.
+
+
+II.
+
+ The curling wreaths like turbans seem
+ Of silent slaves that come and go,--
+ Or Viziers, packed with craft and crime,
+ Whom I behead from time to time,
+ With pipe-stem, at a single blow.
+ And now and then a lingering cloud
+ Takes gracious form at my desire,
+ And at my side my lady stands,
+ Unwinds her veil with snowy hands,--
+ A shadowy shape, a breath of fire!
+
+ O Love, if you were only here
+ Beside me in this mellow light,
+ Though all the bitter winds should blow,
+ And all the ways be choked with snow,
+ 'Twould be a true Arabian night!
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+MY AFTER-DINNER CLOUD.
+
+
+ Some sombre evening, when I sit
+ And feed in solitude at home,
+ Perchance an ultra-bilious fit
+ Paints all the world an orange chrome.
+
+ When Fear and Care and grim Despair
+ Flock round me in a ghostly crowd,
+ One charm dispels them all in air,--
+ I blow my after-dinner cloud.
+
+ 'Tis melancholy to devour
+ The gentle chop in loneliness.
+ I look on six--my prandial hour--
+ With dread not easy to express.
+
+ And yet for every penance done,
+ Due compensation seems allow'd.
+ My penance o'er, its price is won,--
+ I blow my after-dinner cloud.
+
+ My clay is _not_ a Henry Clay,--
+ I like it better on the whole;
+ And when I fill it, I can say,
+ I drown my sorrows in the bowl.
+
+ For most I love my lowly pipe
+ When weary, sad, and leaden-brow'd;
+ At such a time behold me ripe
+ To blow my after-dinner cloud.
+
+ As gracefully the smoke ascends
+ In columns from the weed beneath,
+ My friendly wizard, Fancy, lends
+ A vivid shape to every wreath.
+
+ Strange memories of life or death
+ Up from the cradle to the shroud,
+ Come forth as, with enchanter's breath,
+ I blow my after-dinner cloud.
+
+ What wonder if it stills my care
+ To quit the present for the past,
+ And summon back the things that were,
+ Which only thus in vapor last?
+
+ What wonder if I envy not
+ The rich, the giddy, and the proud,
+ Contented in this quiet spot
+ To blow my after-dinner cloud?
+
+HENRY S. LEIGH.
+
+
+
+
+THE HAPPY SMOKING-GROUND.
+
+
+ When that last pipe is smoked at last
+ And pouch and pipe put by,
+ And Smoked and Smoker both alike
+ In dust and ashes lie,
+ What of the Smoker? Whither passed?
+ Ah, will he smoke no more?
+ And will there be no golden cloud
+ Upon the golden shore?
+ Ah! who shall say we cry in vain
+ To Fate upon his hill,
+ For, howsoe'er we ask and ask,
+ He goes on smoking still.
+ But, surely, 'twere a bitter thing
+ If other men pursue
+ Their various earthly joys again
+ Beyond that distant blue,
+ If the poor Smoker might not ply
+ His peaceful passion too.
+ If Indian braves may still up there
+ On merry scalpings go,
+ And buried Britons rise again
+ With arrow and with bow,
+ May not the Smoker hope to take
+ His "cutty" from below?
+ So let us trust; and when at length
+ You lay me 'neath the yew,
+ Forget not, O my friends, I pray,
+ Pipes and tobacco too!
+
+RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.
+
+
+
+
+SWEET SMOKING PIPE.
+
+
+ Sweet smoking pipe; bright glowing stove,
+ Companion still of my retreat,
+ Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove,
+ And purge my brain with gentle heat.
+
+ Tobacco, charmer of my mind,
+ When, like the meteor's transient gleam.
+ Thy substance gone to air I find,
+ I think, alas, my life's the same!
+
+ What else but lighted dust am I?
+ Then shew'st me what my fate will be;
+ And when thy sinking ashes die,
+ I learn that I must end like thee.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+CIGARETTE RINGS.
+
+
+ How it blows! How it rains! I'll not turn out to-night;
+ I'm too sleepy to read and too lazy to write;
+ So I'll watch the blue rings, as they eddy and twirl,
+ And in gossamer wreathings coquettishly curl.
+ In the stillness of night and the sparseness of chimes
+ There's a fleetness in fancy, a frolic in rhymes;
+ There's a world of romance that persistently clings
+ To the azurine curving of Cigarette Rings!
+
+ What a picture comes back from the passed-away times!
+ They are lounging once more 'neath the sweet-scented limes;
+ See how closely he watches the Queen of Coquettes,
+ As her white hands roll deftly those small cigarettes!
+ He believes in her smiles and puts faith in her sighs
+ While he's dazzled by light from her fathomless eyes.
+ Ah, the dearest of voices delightfully sings
+ Through the wind intertwining of Cigarette Rings!
+
+ How sweet was her song in the bright summer-time,
+ When winds whispered low 'neath the tremulous lime!
+ How sweet, too, that bunch of forget-me-nots blue--
+ The love he thought lasting, the words he thought true!
+ _Ah, the words of a woman concerning such things_
+ _Are weak and unstable as Cigarette Rings!_
+
+J. ASHBY-STERRY.
+
+
+
+
+SMOKING SPIRITUALIZED.
+
+
+ The following old poem was long ascribed, on apparently
+ sufficient grounds, to the Rev. Ralph Erskine, or, as he
+ designated himself, "Ralph Erskine, V.D.M." The peasantry
+ throughout the North of England always called it "Erskine
+ Song;" and not only is his name given as the author in
+ numerous chap-books, but in his own volume of "Gospel
+ Sonnets," from an early copy of which this version is
+ transcribed. The discovery, however, by Mr. Collier of the
+ First Part in a MSS. temp. James I., with the initials "G.W."
+ affixed to it, has disposed of Erskine's claim to the honor of
+ the entire authorship. G.W. is supposed to be George
+ Wither; but this is purely conjectural, and it is not at
+ all improbable that G.W. really stands for W.G., as it was
+ a common practice among anonymous writers to reverse their
+ initials.
+
+ The history, then, of the poem seems to be this: that the
+ First Part, as it is now printed, originally constituted the
+ whole production, being complete in itself; that the Second
+ Part was afterwards added by the Rev. Ralph Erskine, and that
+ both parts came subsequently to be ascribed to him, as his
+ was the only name published in connection with the song. See
+ "Ballads of the Peasantry," Bell's edition. Variants of
+ this song will be found on pages 86 and 150 of the present
+ collection; the first is ascribed to George Wither, and
+ the other is taken from the first volume of "Pills to purge
+ Melancholy."
+
+
+PART I.
+
+ This Indian weed, now withered quite.
+ Tho' green at noon, cut down at night,
+ Shows thy decay,
+ All flesh is hay:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ The pipe, so lily-like and weak,
+ Does thus thy mortal state bespeak;
+ Thou art e'en such--
+ Gone with a touch:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ And when the smoke ascends on high,
+ Then thou behold'st the vanity
+ Of worldly stuff--
+ Gone with a puff:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ And when the pipe grows foul within,
+ Think on thy soul defiled with sin;
+ For then the fire
+ It doth require:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ And seest the ashes cast away,
+ Then to thyself thou mayest say,
+ That to the dust
+ Return thou must:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+ Was this small plant for thee cut down?
+ So was the Plant of Great Renown,
+ Which Mercy sends
+ For nobler ends:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ Does juice medicinal proceed
+ From such a naughty foreign weed?
+ Then what's the power
+ Of Jesse's Flower?
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ The promise, like the pipe, inlays,
+ And by the mouth of faith conveys
+ What virtue flows
+ From Sharon's Rose:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ In vain the unlighted pipe you blow;
+ Your pains in outward means are so,
+ 'Till heavenly fire
+ Your heart inspire:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+ The smoke, like burning incense, towers:
+ So should a praying heart of yours,
+ With ardent cries,
+ Surmount the skies:
+ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
+
+
+
+
+TOBACCO IS AN INDIAN WEED.
+
+
+ Tobacco's but an Indian weed,
+ Grows green at morn, cut down at eve;
+ It shows decay; we are but clay;
+ Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
+
+ The pipe that is so lily white,
+ Wherein so many take delight,
+ Is broke with a touch,--man's life is such;
+ Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
+
+ The pipe that is so foul within
+ Shows how man's soul is stained with sin,
+ And then the fire it doth require;
+ Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
+
+ The ashes that are left behind
+ Do serve to put us all in mind
+ That unto dust return we must;
+ Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
+
+ The smoke that does so high ascend
+ Shews us man's life must have an end;
+ The vapor's gone,--man's life is done;
+ Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
+
+From "_Pills to Purge Melancholy_."
+
+
+
+
+TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Let poets rhyme of what they will,
+ Youth, Beauty, Love, or Glory, still
+ My theme shall be Tobacco!
+ Hail, weed, eclipsing every flow'r,
+ Of thee I fain would make my bow'r,
+ When fortune frowns, or tempests low'r,
+ Mild comforter of woe!
+
+ They say in truth an angel's foot
+ First brought to life thy precious root,
+ The source of every pleasure!
+ Descending from the skies he press'd
+ With hallowed touch Earth's yielding breast;
+ Forth sprang the plant, and then was bless'd,
+ As man's chief treasure!
+
+ Throughout the world who knows thee not?
+ Of palace and of lowly cot
+ The universal guest,--
+ The friend of Gentile, Turk, and Jew,
+ To all a stay, to none untrue,
+ The balm that can our ills subdue,
+ And soothe us into rest!
+
+ With thee the poor man can abide
+ Oppression, want, the scorn of pride,
+ The curse of penury.
+ Companion of his lonely state,
+ He is no longer desolate,
+ And still can brave an adverse fate
+ With honest worth and thee!
+
+ All honor to the patriot bold
+ Who brought, instead of promised gold,
+ Thy leaf to Britain's shore.
+ It cost him life; but thou shalt raise
+ A cloud of fragrance to his praise,
+ And bards shall hail in deathless lays
+ The valiant knight of yore.
+
+ Ay, Raleigh! thou wilt live till Time
+ Shall ring his last oblivious chime,
+ The fruitful theme of story;
+ And man in ages hence shall tell
+ How greatness, virtue, wisdom, fell,
+ When England sounded out thy knell,
+ And dimmed her ancient glory.
+
+ And thou, O plant! shalt keep his name
+ Unwithered in the scroll of fame,
+ And teach us to remember;
+ He gave with thee content and peace,
+ Bestow'd on life a longer lease,
+ And bidding every trouble cease,
+ Made summer of December.
+
+THOMAS JONES.
+
+
+
+
+THE CIGAR.
+
+
+ Some sigh for this and that,
+ My wishes don't go far;
+ The world may wag at will,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Some fret themselves to death
+ With Whig and Tory jar;
+ I don't care which is in,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Sir John requests my vote,
+ And so does Mr. Marr;
+ I don't care how it goes,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Some want a German row,
+ Some wish a Russian war;
+ I care not. I'm at peace
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ I never see the "Post,"
+ I seldom read the "Star;"
+ The "Globe" I scarcely heed,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Honors have come to men
+ My juniors at the Bar;
+ No matter--I can wait,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Ambition frets me not;
+ A cab or glory's car
+ Are just the same to me,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ I worship no vain gods,
+ But serve the household Lar;
+ I'm sure to be at home,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ I do not seek for fame,
+ A general with a scar;
+ A private let me be,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ To have my choice among
+ The toys of life's bazaar,
+ The deuce may take them all
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ Some minds are often tost
+ By tempests like a tar;
+ I always seem in port,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ The ardent flame of love,
+ My bosom cannot char,
+ I smoke but do not burn,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+ They tell me Nancy Low
+ Has married Mr. R.;
+ The jilt! but I can live,
+ So I have my cigar.
+
+THOMAS HOOD.
+
+
+
+
+PIPE AND TOBACCO.
+
+
+ When my pipe burns bright and clear,
+ The gods I need not envy here;
+ And as the smoke fades in the wind,
+ Our fleeting life it brings to mind.
+
+ Noble weed! that comforts life,
+ And art with calmest pleasures rife;
+ Heaven grant thee sunshine and warm rain,
+ And to thy planter health and gain.
+
+ Through thee, friend of my solitude,
+ With hope and patience I'm endued,
+ Deep sinks thy power within my heart,
+ And cares and sorrows all depart.
+
+ Then let non-smokers rail forever;
+ Shall their hard words true friends dissever?
+ Pleasure's too rare to cast away
+ My pipe, for what the railers say!
+
+ When love grows cool, thy fire still warms me,
+ When friends are fled, thy presence charms me;
+ If thou art full, though purse be bare,
+ I smoke, and cast away all care!
+
+_German Folk Song._
+
+
+
+
+THE LATEST CONVERT.
+
+
+ I've been in love some scores of times,
+ With Amy, Nellie, Katie, Mary--
+ To name them all would stretch my rhymes
+ From here as far as Demerary.
+
+ But each has wed some other man,--
+ Girls always do, I find, in real life,--
+ And I am left alone to scan
+ The horizon of my own ideal life.
+
+ I still survive. I was, I think,
+ Not born to run in double harness;
+ I did not shirk my food and drink
+ When Nellie married Harry Carnice.
+
+ But I am wedded to my pipe!
+ That faithful friend, nought can provoke it;
+ Should it grow cold, I gently wipe
+ Its mouth, then fill it, light, and smoke it.
+
+ But it is sweet to kiss; and I
+ Should love to kiss a wife and pet her--
+ She scolds? Straight to my pipe I fly;
+ Her scowls through fragrant smoke look better.
+
+ There's merry Maud--with her I'd dare
+ To brave the matrimonial ocean;
+ _She_ would not pout or fret, but wear
+ A constant smile of sweet devotion.
+
+ How know I that she will not change,
+ My wishes at defiance set? Oh!
+ (Pray this in smallest type arrange)
+ She smokes--at times--a cigareto.
+
+F.W. LITTLETON HAY.
+
+
+
+
+CONFESSION OF A CIGAR SMOKER.
+
+
+ I owe to smoking, more or less,
+ Through life the whole of my success;
+ With my cigar I'm sage and wise,--
+ Without, I'm dull as cloudy skies.
+ When smoking, all my ideas soar,
+ When not, they sink upon the floor.
+ The greatest men have all been smokers,
+ And so were all the greatest jokers.
+ Then ye who'd bid adieu to care,
+ Come here and smoke it into air.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+ Sir Walter Raleigh! name of worth,
+ How sweet for thee to know
+ King James, who never smoked on earth,
+ Is smoking down below.
+
+
+
+
+THE SMOKER'S CALENDAR.
+
+
+ When January's cold appears,
+ A glowing pipe my spirit cheers;
+ And still it glads the length'ning day
+ 'Neath February's milder sway.
+ When March's keener winds succeed,
+ What charms me like the burning weed
+ When April mounts the solar car,
+ I join him, puffing a cigar;
+ And May, so beautiful and bright,
+ Still finds the pleasing weed a-light.
+ To balmy zephyrs it gives zest
+ When June in gayest livery's drest.
+ Through July, Flora's offspring smile,
+ But still Nicotia's can beguile;
+ And August, when its fruits are ripe,
+ Matures my pleasure in a pipe.
+ September finds me in the garden,
+ Communing with a long churchwarden.
+ Even in the wane of dull October
+ I smoke my pipe and sip my "robar."
+ November's soaking show'rs require
+ The smoking pipe and blazing fire.
+ The darkest day in drear December's--
+ That's lighted by their glowing embers.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE.
+
+
+ As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
+ And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
+ So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design
+ I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.
+
+ The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
+ As I turn it low, to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
+ And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
+ Its fate with my tobacco, and to vanish with the smoke.
+
+ 'Tis a fragrant retrospection, for the loving thoughts that start
+ Into being are like perfumes from the blossom of the heart;
+ And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine--
+ When my truant fancies wander with that old sweetheart of mine.
+
+ Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
+ The voices of my children and the mother as she sings,
+ I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme
+ When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream.
+
+ In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm
+ To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm;
+ For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine
+ That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.
+
+ A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace,
+ Floats out of my tobacco as the genii from the vase;
+ And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes,
+ As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.
+
+ I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
+ She wore when first I kissed her, and she answered the caress
+ With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
+ Grew round the stump," she loved me,--that old sweetheart of mine!
+
+ And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
+ As we used to talk together of the future we had planned:
+ When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
+ But write the tender verses that she set the music to;
+
+ When we should live together in a cozy little cot,
+ Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
+ Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
+ And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine;
+
+ And I should be her lover forever and a day,
+ And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
+ And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
+ They would not smile in heaven till the other's kiss had come.
+
+ But ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
+ And the door is softly opened, and my wife is standing there!
+ Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign
+ To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.
+
+JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
+
+
+
+
+A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Let the learned talk of books,
+ The glutton of cooks,
+ The lover of Celia's soft smack--O!
+ No mortal can boast
+ So noble a toast
+ As a pipe of accepted tobacco.
+
+ Let the soldier for fame,
+ And a general's name,
+ In battle get many a thwack--O!
+ Let who will have most,
+ Who will rule the rooste,
+ Give me but a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ Tobacco gives wit
+ To the dullest old cit,
+ And makes him of politics crack--O!
+ The lawyers i' the hall
+ Were not able to bawl,
+ Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.
+
+ The man whose chief glory
+ Is telling a story,
+ Had never arrived at the smack--O!
+ Between ever heying,
+ And as I was saying,
+ Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.
+
+ The doctor who places
+ Much skill in grimaces,
+ And feels your pulse running tic-tack--O!
+ Would you know his chief skill?
+ It is only to fill
+ And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.
+
+ The courtiers alone
+ To this weed are not prone;
+ Would you know what 'tis makes them so slack--O?
+ 'Twas because it inclined
+ To be honest the mind,
+ And therefore they banished tobacco.
+
+HENRY FIELDING.
+
+
+
+
+ Friend of my youth, companion of my later days.
+ What needs my Muse to sing thy various praise?
+ In country or in town, on land or sea,
+ The weed is still delightful company.
+ In joy or sorrow, grief or racking pain,
+ We fly to thee for solace once again.
+ Delicious plant, by all the world consumed,
+ 'Tis pity thou, like man, to ashes too art doom'd.
+
+ANON.
+
+
+
+
+ Tobacco, some say, is a potent narcotic,
+ That rules half the world in a way quite despotic;
+ So, to punish him well for his wicked and merry tricks,
+ We'll burn him forthwith, as they used to do heretics.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY CIGAR.
+
+ The warmth of thy glow,
+ Well-lighted cigar,
+ Makes happy thoughts flow,
+ And drives sorrow afar.
+
+ The stronger the wind blows,
+ The brighter thou burnest!
+ The dreariest of life's woes,
+ Less gloomy thou turnest!
+
+ As I feel on my lip
+ Thy unselfish kiss,
+ Like thy flame-colored tip,
+ All is rosy-hued bliss.
+
+ No longer does sorrow
+ Lay weight on my heart;
+ And all fears of the morrow,
+ In joy-dreams depart.
+
+ Sweet cheerer of sadness!
+ Life's own happy star!
+ I greet thee with gladness,
+ My friendly cigar!
+
+FRIEDRICH MARC.
+
+
+
+
+CIGARS AND BEER.
+
+
+ Here
+ With my beer
+ I sit,
+ While golden moments flit.
+ Alas!
+ They pass
+ Unheeded by;
+ And, as they fly,
+ I,
+ Being dry,
+ Sit idly sipping here
+ My beer.
+
+ Oh, finer far
+ Than fame or riches are
+ The graceful smoke-wreaths of this cigar!
+ Why
+ Should I
+ Weep, wail, or sigh?
+ What if luck has passed me by?
+ What if my hopes are dead,
+ My pleasures fled?
+ Have I not still
+ My fill
+ Of right good cheer,--
+ Cigars and beer?
+
+ Go, whining youth,
+ Forsooth!
+ Go, weep and wail,
+ Sigh and grow pale,
+ Weave melancholy rhymes
+ On the old times,
+ Whose joys like shadowy ghosts appear,--
+ But leave me to my beer!
+ Gold is dross,
+ Love is loss;
+ So, if I gulp my sorrows down,
+ Or see them drown
+ In foamy draughts of old nut-brown,
+ Then do I wear the crown
+ Without a cross!
+
+GEORGE ARNOLD.
+
+
+
+
+EFFUSION BY A CIGAR SMOKER.
+
+
+ Warriors! who from the cannon's mouth blow fire,
+ Your fame to raise,
+ Upon its blaze,
+ Alas! ye do but light your funeral pyre!
+ Tempting Fate's stroke;
+ Ye fall, and all your glory ends in smoke.
+ Safe in my chair from wounds and woe,
+ _My_ fire and smoke from mine own mouth I blow.
+
+ Ye booksellers! who deal, like me, in puffs,
+ The public smokes,
+ You and your hoax,
+ And turns your empty vapor to rebuffs.
+ Ye through the nose
+ Pay for each puff; when mine the same way flows,
+ It does not run me into debt;
+ And thus, the more I fume, the less I fret.
+
+ Authors! created to be puff'd to death,
+ And fill the mouth
+ Of some uncouth
+ Bookselling wight, who sucks your brains and breath,
+ Your leaves thus far
+ (Without its fire) resemble my cigar;
+ But vapid, uninspired, and flat:
+ When, when, O Bards, will ye _compose_ like _that_?
+
+ Since life and the anxieties that share
+ Our hopes and trust,
+ Are smoke and dust,
+ Give me the smoke and dust that banish care.
+ The roll'd leaf bring,
+ Which from its ashes, Phoenix-like, can spring;
+ The fragrant leaf whose magic balm
+ Can, like Nepenthe, all our sufferings charm.
+
+ Oh, what supreme beatitude is this!
+ What soft and sweet
+ Sensations greet
+ My soul, and wrap it in Elysian bliss!
+ I soar above
+ Dull earth in these ambrosial clouds, like Jove,
+ And from my empyrean height
+ Look down upon the world with calm delight.
+
+HORACE SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+A POT, AND A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
+
+
+ Some praise taking snuff;
+ And 'tis pleasant enough
+ To those who have got the right knack, O!
+ But give me, my boys,
+ Those exquisite joys,
+ A pot, and a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ When fume follows fume
+ To the top of the room,
+ In circles pursuing their track, O!
+ How sweet to inhale
+ The health-giving gale
+ Of a pipe of Virginia tobacco.
+
+ Let soldiers so bold
+ For fame or for gold
+ Their enemies cut, slash, and hack, O!
+ We have fire and smoke,
+ Though all but in joke,
+ In a peaceable pipe of tobacco.
+
+ Should a mistress, unkind,
+ Be inconstant in mind,
+ And on your affections look black, O!
+ Let her wherrit and tiff,
+ 'Twill blow off in a whiff,
+ If you take but a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ The miserly elf,
+ Who, in hoarding his pelf,
+ Keeps body and soul on the rack, O!
+ Would he bless and be blest,
+ He might open his chest
+ By taking a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ Politicians so wise,
+ All ears and all eyes
+ For news, till their addled pates crack, O!
+ After puzzling their brains,
+ Will not get for their pains
+ The worth of a pipe of tobacco
+
+ If your land in the claw
+ Of a limb of the law
+ You trust, or your health to a quack, O!
+ 'Tis fifty to one
+ They're both as soon gone
+ As you'd puff out a pipe of tobacco.
+
+ Life's short, 'tis agreed;
+ So we'll try from the weed,
+ Of man a brief emblem to tack, O!
+ When his spirit ascends,
+ Die he must,--and he ends
+ In dust, like a pipe of tobacco.
+
+_From "The Universal Songster, or Museum of Mirth."_
+
+
+
+
+IF I WERE KING.
+
+
+ If I were king, my pipe should be premier.
+ The skies of time and chance are seldom clear,
+ We would inform them all, with bland blue weather.
+ Delight alone would need to shed a tear,
+ For dream and deed should war no more together.
+
+ Art should aspire, yet ugliness be dear;
+ Beauty, the shaft, should speed with wit for feather;
+ And love, sweet love, should never fall to sere,
+ If I were king.
+
+ But politics should find no harbour near;
+ The Philistine should fear to slip his tether;
+ Tobacco should be duty free, and beer;
+ In fact, in room of this, the age of leather,
+ An age of gold all radiant should appear,
+ If I were king.
+
+W.E. HENLEY.
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPE YOU MAKE YOURSELF.
+
+
+ There's clay pipes an' briar pipes an' meerschaum pipes as well,
+ There's plain pipes an' fancy pipes--things jes made to sell;
+ But any pipe that kin be bought fer marbles, chalk, or pelf,
+ Ain't ekal to the flaver of th' pipe you make yourself.
+
+ Jest take a common corn cob an' whittle out the middle,
+ Then plug up one end of it as tight as any fiddle;
+ Fit a stem into th' side an' lay her on th' shelf,
+ An' when she's dry you take her down, that pipe you made yourself.
+
+ Cram her full clar to th' brim with nachral leaf, you bet--
+ 'T will smoke a trifle better for bein' somewhat wet--
+ Take your worms and fishin' pole, and a jug along for health,
+ An' you'll get a taste o' heaven from that pipe you made yourself.
+
+ There's clay pipes an' briar pipes an' meerschaum pipes as well,
+ There's plain pipes an' fancy pipes--things jes made to sell;
+ But any pipe that kin be bought for marbles, chalk, or pelf,
+ Ain't ekal to th' flayer of the pipe you make yourself.
+
+HENRY E. BROWN.
+
+
+
+
+CHIBOUQUE.
+
+
+ At Yeni-Djami, after Rhamadan,
+ The pacha in his palace lolls at ease;
+ Latakieh fumes his sensual palate please,
+ While round-limbed almees dance near his divan.
+
+ Slaves lure away _ennui_ with flowers and fan;
+ And as his gem-tipped chibouque glows, he sees,
+ In dreamy trance, those marvellous mysteries
+ The prophet sings of in the Al-Koran!
+
+ Pale, dusk-eyed girls, with sequin-studded hair,
+ Dart through the opal clouds like agile deer,
+ With sensuous curves his fancy to provoke,--
+ Delicious houris, ravishing and fair,
+ Who to his vague and drowsy mind appear
+ Like fragrant phantoms arabesqued in smoke!
+
+FRANCIS S. SALTUS.
+
+
+
+
+IN ROTTEN ROW.
+
+
+ In Rotten Row a cigarette
+ I sat and smoked, with no regret
+ For all the tumult that had been.
+ The distances were still and green,
+ And streaked with shadows cool and wet.
+
+ Two sweethearts on a bench were set,
+ Two birds among the boughs were met;
+ So love and song were heard and seen
+ In Rotten Row.
+
+ A horse or two there was to fret
+ The soundless sand; but work and debt,
+ Fair flowers and falling leaves between,
+ While clocks are chiming clear and keen,
+ A man may very well forget
+ In Rotten Row.
+
+W.E. HENLEY.
+
+
+
+
+THE DUET.
+
+
+ I was smoking a cigarette;
+ Maud, my wife, and the tenor, McKey,
+ Were singing together a blithe duet,
+ And days it were better I should forget
+ Came suddenly back to me,--
+ Days when life seemed a gay masque ball,
+ And to love and be loved was the sum of it all.
+
+ As they sang together, the whole scene fled,
+ The room's rich hangings, the sweet home air,
+ Stately Maud, with her proud blond head,
+ And I seemed to see in her place instead
+ A wealth of blue-black hair,
+ And a face, ah! your face--yours, Lisette;
+ A face it were wiser I should forget.
+
+ We were back--well, no matter when or where;
+ But you remember, I know, Lisette.
+ I saw you, dainty and debonair,
+ With the very same look that you used to wear
+ In the days I should forget.
+ And your lips, as red as the vintage we quaffed,
+ Were pearl-edged bumpers of wine when you laughed.
+
+ Two small slippers with big rosettes
+ Peeped out under your kilt-skirt there,
+ While we sat smoking our cigarettes
+ (Oh, I shall be dust when my heart forgets!)
+ And singing that self-same air:
+ And between the verses, for interlude,
+ I kissed your throat and your shoulders nude.
+
+ You were so full of a subtle fire,
+ You were so warm and so sweet, Lisette;
+ You were everything men admire;
+ And there were no fetters to make us tire,
+ For you were--a pretty grisette.
+ But you loved as only such natures can,
+ With a love that makes heaven or hell for a man.
+
+ They have ceased singing that old duet,
+ Stately Maud and the tenor, McKey.
+ "You are burning your coat with your cigarette,
+ And _qu'avez vous_, dearest, your lids are wet,"
+ Maud says, as she leans o'er me.
+ And I smile, and lie to her, husband-wise,
+ "Oh, it is nothing but smoke in my eyes."
+
+ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+
+
+MY CIGARETTE.
+
+
+ Ma pauvre petite,
+ My little sweet,
+ Why do you cry?
+ Why this small tear,
+ So pure and clear,
+ In each blue eye?
+
+ "My cigarette--
+ I 'm smoking yet?"
+ (I'll be discreet.)
+ I toss it, see,
+ Away from me
+ Into the street.
+
+ You see I do
+ All things for you.
+ Come, let us sup.
+ (But, oh, what joy
+ To be that boy
+ Who picked it up.)
+
+TOM HALL.
+
+
+
+
+A BACHELOR'S VIEWS.
+
+
+ A pipe, a book,
+ A cosy nook,
+ A fire,--at least its embers;
+ A dog, a glass:--
+ 'Tis thus we pass
+ Such hours as one remembers.
+
+ Who'd wish to wed?
+ Poor Cupid's dead
+ These thousand years, I wager.
+ The modern maid
+ Is but a jade,
+ Not worth the time to cage her.
+
+ In silken gown
+ To "take" the town
+ Her first and last ambition.
+ What good is she
+ To you or me
+ Who have but a "position"?
+
+ So let us drink
+ To her,--but think
+ Of him who has to keep her;
+ And _sans_ a wife
+ Let's spend our life
+ In bachelordom,--it's cheaper.
+
+TOM HALL.
+
+
+
+
+PIPES AND BEER.
+
+
+ Before I was famous I used to sit
+ In a dull old under-ground room I knew,
+ And sip cheap beer, and be glad for it,
+ With a wild Bohemian friend or two.
+
+ And oh, it was joy to loiter thus,
+ At peace in the heart of the city's stir,
+ Entombed, while life hurried over us,
+ In our lazy bacchanal sepulchre.
+
+ There was artist George, with the blond Greek head,
+ And the startling creeds, and the loose cravat;
+ There was splenetic journalistic Fred,
+ Of the sharp retort and the shabby hat;
+
+ There was dreamy Frank, of the lounging gait,
+ Who lived on nothing a year, or less,
+ And always meant to be something great,
+ But only meant, and smoked to excess;
+
+ And last myself, whom their funny sneers
+ Annoyed no whit as they laughed and said,
+ I listened to all their grand ideas
+ And wrote them out for my daily bread!
+
+ The Teuton beer-bibbers came and went,
+ Night after night, and stared, good folk,
+ At our table, noisy with argument,
+ And our chronic aureoles of smoke.
+
+ And oh, my life! but we all loved well
+ The talk,--free, fearless, keen, profound,--
+ The rockets of wit that flashed and fell
+ In that dull old tavern under-ground!
+
+ But there came a change in my days at last,
+ And fortune forgot to starve and stint,
+ And the people chose to admire aghast
+ The book I had eaten dirt to print.
+
+ And new friends gathered about me then,
+ New voices summoned me there and here;
+ The world went down in my dingy den,
+ And drew me forth from the pipes and beer.
+
+ I took the stamp of my altered lot,
+ As the sands of the certain seasons ran,
+ And slowly, whether I would or not,
+ I felt myself growing a gentleman.
+
+ But now and then I would break the thrall,
+ I would yield to a pang of dumb regret,
+ And steal to join them, and find them all,
+ With the amber wassail near them yet,--
+
+ Find, and join them, and try to seem
+ A fourth for the old queer merry three,
+ With my fame as much of a yearning dream
+ As my morrow's dinner was wont to be.
+
+ But the wit would lag, and the mirth would lack,
+ And the god of jollity hear no call,
+ And the prosperous broadcloth on my back
+ Hung over their spirits like a pall!
+
+ It was not that they failed, each one, to try
+ Their warmth of welcome to speak and show;
+ I should just have risen and said good-bye,
+ With a haughty look, had they served me so.
+
+ It was rather that each would seem, instead,
+ With not one vestige of spleen or pride,
+ Across a chasm of change to spread
+ His greeting hands to the further side.
+
+ And our gladdest words rang strange and cold,
+ Like the echoes of other long-lost words;
+ And the nights were no more the nights of old
+ Than spring would be spring without the birds!
+
+ So they waned and waned, these visits of mine,
+ 'Till I married the heiress, ending here.
+ For if caste approves the cigars and wine,
+ She must frown perforce upon pipes and beer.
+
+ And now 'tis years since I saw these men,
+ Years since I knew them living yet.
+ And of this alone I am sure since then,--
+ That none has gained what he toiled to get.
+
+ For I keep strict watch on the world of art,
+ And George, with his wide, rich-dowered brain!
+ His fervent fancy, his ardent heart,
+ Though he greatly toiled, has toiled in vain.
+
+ And Fred, for all he may sparkle bright
+ In caustic column, in clever quip,
+ Of a truth must still be hiding his light
+ Beneath the bushel of journalship.
+
+ And dreamy Frank must be dreaming still,
+ Lounging through life, if yet alive,
+ Smoking his vast preposterous fill,
+ Lounging, smoking, striving to strive.
+
+ And I, the fourth in that old queer throng,
+ Fourth and least, as my soul avows,--
+ I alone have been counted strong,
+ I alone have the laurelled brows!
+
+ Well, and what has it all been worth?
+ May not my soul to my soul confess
+ That "succeeding," here upon earth,
+ Does not alway assume success?
+
+ I would cast, and gladly, from this gray head
+ Its crown, to regain one sweet lost year
+ With artist George, with splenetic Fred,
+ With dreamy Frank, with the pipes and beer!
+
+EDGAR FAWCETT.
+
+
+
+
+A BACHELOR'S INVOCATION.
+
+
+ When all my plans have come to grief,
+ And every bill is due,
+ And every faith that's worth belief
+ Has proved itself untrue;
+ And when, as now, I've jilted been
+ By every girl I've met,
+ Ah! then I flee for peace to thee,
+ My darling cigarette.
+
+ Hail, sorceress! whose cloudy spells
+ About my senses driven,
+ Alone can loose their prison cells
+ And waft my soul to heaven.
+ Above all earthly loves, I swear,
+ I hold thee best--and yet,
+ Would I could see a match for thee,
+ My darling cigarette.
+
+ With lips unstained to thee I bring
+ A lover's gentle kiss,
+ And woo thee, see, with this fair ring,
+ And this, and this, and this.
+ But ah, the rings no sooner cease
+ (Inconstant, vain coquette!)
+ Than, like the rest, thou vanishest
+ In smoke, my cigarette.
+
+_Pall Mall Gazette_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pipe and Pouch, by Various
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