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[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, Blücher, 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.
Mæcenas 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 Leucothoë, 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 learnéd 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 _cérise_,--
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 _retroussée_
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._