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Editld by William Sharp
LYRA NICOTIANA
FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES,
SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK
yf yra nicotiana: poems
jLC and verses concern-
ing TOBACCO: EDITED WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
WILLIAM G. HUTCHISON
Ftimona philosophiquement ,
Promenons noxis
Paisihlement ;
Rien faire est doux.
Paul Verlaine.
LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
NOTE.
For courtesy in gianting peniii^tiion to include copyright
poems iu this volume, I am under much obligation to authors
and publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, among whom I
wish to mention Sir Walter Besant, Messrs. T. B. Aldrich,
Alfred Cochrane, Cotsford Dick, William Edmondson, Edgar
Fawcett, Richard Le Gallienne, W. A. Mackenzie, Theo.
Marzials, Brander JIatthews, Arthur Symons, Ernest Radford
and Mrs. Radford (for their poems from Old and New and
Songs and other Verses respectively), Mrs. Beck and Miss
Louise Lorimer (for an extract from their translation of
Schefrel's Trumpeter) ; the editors of the Globe, London Society ^
Pall Mall Gazette, St. James's Gazette, Spectator, and Westmin-
ster Gazette; and the Century Co., Messrs. Chatto & Windus,
Longmans, Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Harper, Houghton,
Mifiiin & Co., Putnam's Sons (for "Chibouque" from The
Bayadere, by F. S. Saltus), Boston Book Co., Fisher Un win,
and John Lane. In the case of one or two American writers,
my best efforts to communicate with them have been unsuc-
cessful : if this Note comes under their notice, will they accept
my apologies and thanks?
To Mr. John Eraser, of Messrs. Cope, special acknowledgment
is due for his kindness in permitting me to range at will through
the defunct but lamented Tobacco Plant; and, last of all, let
me express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Charles Godfrey
Leiand, and to the author of the series of exquisitely wrought
lyrics on pages 231-237, both for their contributions and their
counsel.
To anticipate an obvious criticism, I should like to observe
that I am not responsible for the omission of Calverley's " Ode
to Tobacco," pennission to include it not having been granted
by the owners of the copyright.
w. G. n.
COxNTENTS.
PAGE
Imrojjuction xiii
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SMOKERS.
To his good and olde Friend, M. Alexander Craig— Jri7/tft/u
Barclay 3
To his good Cousing, M. John Hay of Raraasse— iri7^a?n
Barclay 4
To the Abusers of Tabacco — William Barclay ... 5
To my Lord the Bishop of Murray — William Barclay . . 6
To the most accomplished and true Philoclea of this Yle,
J..E.L.L.V.— William Barclay ■. 7
To his very Avorshipfull and deare Cousing, the Laird of
Boine— William Barclay 8
"Tobacco's a Musician"— £flrfo?i ZTo^zcZai/ .... 9
'Epigra.m— Samuel Rouiaiids 11
In Praise of Tobacco— SamiteZ iJoM'?a?2ds . . . .12
Sonnet — Le Sieur de Saint- Amant, trans, by Sir Walter Be sunt 13
Sonnet— J»o., traris. by James Thomson 14
Smoke is the Food of Lovers— J'aco& Cats, trans, by Richard
Pigot 15
An Encomium on Tobacco— ^?io?iy?no«s; Tu/je, Jrt/jies /. . 16
The Indian Weed 19
Smoking spiritualised— iJaJpTi Erskine 21
Sonnet on Toh^icco— From the French of Graevius . . . 23
viii CONTENTS.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SMOKERS.
PAGE
Sweet Smoaking Pipe -7
A Pipe of Tobacco— /saac Hawkins Browne . . . 28
"J'al du bon Tabac"— T^e AbM de Laitaiynant, trans. b;j
Charles Godfrey Leland 36
A Catch on Tobacco 39
A Pipe of Tobacco— ITenry Fieldhuj 41
Choosing a Wife by a Pipe of Tobacco— Gentleman's Maga-
zine 43
To a Pipe of Toha.cco—G entleman^s Magazine . . .44
To the Rev. William Bull— IFi J Ziajn Co ifiJer . . . .45
"Says the Pipe to the finn^-hos."— William Cowper . . 48
Elegy on a Quid of Tobacco— ifo&cyf Southey . . . .50
^nM^-Robert Southey 52
NINETEENTH CENTURY SMOKERS.
The Smoker's Calendar 57
From "The Island"— Lord %ro?i 58
A Farewell to Tobacco— C^arZes Lamb 60
Effusion by a Cigar Smoker— Homce Smith . . . .66
]My Last Cigar— iienry James Meller 63
The Cigar— TTioJHas Hood 69
A Manilla Sonnet— i?. L. Blanchard 72
My ClgSLT— Arthur W. Gundry 73
My Last Cigar— JoSf'^j/i Warren Fabens 76
My Three Loves— /7eiir^ S. Leigh 78
My After-dinner Cloud— ZZcnj'y S. Leigh . . . .81
Ad Ministram— Tri7Ziam Makepeace Thackeray . . .83
An Ode of Thanks for Certain Cigars— J'a???cs Russell Lowell 84
To C. F. Bradford— Ja?nfs Russell Loivell .... 88
A Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire— JajHcs Russell Loivell 91
Smoke and Chess— Samuel W. Dujield 92
Maecenas bids his Friend to Dine 04
CONTENTS. ix
PAGE
At Home 95
Pictures in Smoke— 7\ II. Elliot 96
A Pipe of Tobacco 98
(Jeordie to his Tobacco-pipe— George S. Phillips (January
Searle) 101
The Last Pipe— J. S. 108
Thoughts over a Picture and a Pipe thrown into Verse . 110
Old Pipe of Mine— JoAji J. Gormlej 113
Those Ashes 116
The Smoke Traveller— /rytn^' Browne 117
My Meerschaums— CAaHes F. iyWini)i/.j 121
My Pipe and 1— Elton J. Buckley 124
A Bachelor's Views— Tojji Uall 126
On Receipt of a Rare Pipe 128
The Lost Lotus 131
Latakia— T/i07n«s Bailey Aldilch 132
Chibouque — Francis S. Saltus ISi
The Patriotic Smoker's Lament— T/<e St. James's Gazette . 135
''KeSits took SnuS"— The Globe 138
How it once was— iVeit; York Sim 140
The Baron and his Daughter— J. 1'. vo)i Scheffel, tians. by
Jess'e Beck and Louise Lorimer 142
Tobacco et Baccho— CAarZes Godfrey Leland . . .148
Breitmann's Rauchlied— CAarZes Godfrey Leland . . 150
Inscriptions for Tobacco ^SiXS— Bernard Barker, etc. . . 153
" My Lady Nicotine " \ina\c»XQ(\.—WilliaynEdmond^on . 154
"Scorn not the Meerschaum" 155
A Ballade of Tobacco— i>mnc7f?- Matthews . . . .156
Ode to my Pipe— J. ?u?rc if Wynter 158
Fidus Achates— TF. A. 2[ackenzie 160
A Ballade of the Best Pipe— i?. F. dlurray . . . .101
" A Pipe to Smoke"— TT. G. i7. 163
My Comforter 164
Inconsolable 165
Polycrates on Waterloo Bddge— James Thomson . . 166
Hmoke—Brander Matthexvs 169
On the Tramp 171
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
What I like 172
A Smoker's Complaint 173
Song of the Smoke Wreaths 17i
Sparkling and Bright 176
When a Smokin'-Car is 'tached— 5. Walter Norris . . 178
The Pipe you make yourself— II eiiry E. Brown . . . 180
Ingin Summer — Eva Wilder Brodhead 182
Lost on the Perran Sands— ifejiry Sewell Stvkes . . .184
The Quiet Pipe— DanieZ G. Porter 186
The Pipe Critic— Walter Littlcfield 187
A Valentine 189
Epitaph 190
A Woman's Last Word 191
My Cigarette— Tom Hall 192
A Warning — Arthur Lovell 193
Bouquet de Cigare— //a?'i?e)-'s Weekly 195
The Scent of a Good Cigar-Kate A. Carrinr/ton . . . 197
My Cigarette— Charles F. Lummis 193
An Old Pipe 200
" Give a Man a Horse he can Eide "—Jaraes Thomson . 201
" Grey Clouds come Puffing from my Lips"— Ja?nes Thomson 202
From the Terrace— ^Z/red Cochrane 204
In Wreaths of Smoke— Frank Newton Holman . . . 20G
Artist Friends— ^non 207
Sub Uossi— Ernest Radford 208
The Persistent Feminine— U'. G. /7 209
On the Brink 211
A Novice— J>o«ie iJacf/o/vi 214
The Sisters of the Cigarette— Cofs/o)-cZ Dick . . . .217
The 'DViQt—Ella Wheeler Wilcox 220
Pastel— J.r^7mr Symons 222
In Bohemia— ^ri/iur Symons 223
Pipes and Beer— itZr/o?- Fawcett 224
Cigars and Beer— Georye Arnold 229
"If IwereKing"— ir. £:. /7 231
A Morality— F. E. H 232
Love and Tobacco- ]!\ E.II 233
CONTENTS. xi
PAGE
"Oh, Try the Weed"— r. i-i'. // 234
Inter Sodales— )r. E. U 2:J5
My Meerschaum Pipe— IT. E. H 236
Pipeof my Soul— )r. JB,'. // 237
Interjections— i^nie*^ Radford 238
Ballade of the Drowning Fusee— 17. K. Stephen . . . 239
On a Broken Pipe— James Thomson 241
"And Life is like a Pipe" — Theo. Marzials .... 242
Edifying Reflections of a Smoker— German (Anon.), trans.
by Eduard Breck 243
Ode to my Cigar— CAar^es Sprague 245
The Philosophy of Smoke— Pitncft 247
With Pipe and Book— iv/cAorcZ Le GaUienne . . . 249
The Happy Smoking Ground— ii/c7(ard Le GaUienne . . 250
Epilogue— TK. G. H 252
Notes 257
INTRODUCTION:
AN EPISTLE DEDICATORY
To K. J. II.
To you I dedicate this little book, if it be permitted
me to dedicate to any one of my own choosing that
which is for the most the work of better than my-
self. This granted, I could inscribe it to none more
fit than you. " You told me you would love this
book because it had been written with you, and
also because it was after your own heart" — thus
Renan in his dedication of the Vie de Jesus; and
the words, in a measure, fit this humbler work.
For has it not been done in concert, did we not
discuss it before it had yet taken shape, have you
not lightened the task with your aid and counsel,
xiv INTRODUCTION.
counsel that had the more value in that you too
hold in affection the two elemental facts with which
I had to deal — tobacco and poetry ?
But these are brave words to use concerning a
very modest performance — the selection of some
of the best poems and verses in the language which
relate to tobacco. It may be held that some
apology is necessary for the production of yet
another anthology on a subject which the thought-
less might deem of but trivial import. Anthologies
are legion, it might be urged, and Parnassus is
inaccessible by reason of the mighty multitude of
editors that stand around it as a living wall. These
many years indeed the maker of anthologies has
been abroad in the land. He has anthologised —
if such a word there be — most things from religion
to fox-hunting, and has sometimes had difficulty in
justifying his book's existence before the world.
There are who may think that difficulty present
here. Tobacco, the ascetic may exclaim, what
relation has it to poetry — "the criticism of life" ?
To which the only answer possible would be, that
a life lacking tobacco would lay itself dangerously
open to criticism. But another question remains
INTRODUCTION. xv
to be asked — and in this case it is the ipisslnia
verba of a certain solemn ass, surely a lineal
descendant of the most high and mighty author
of the Counterblast^ that I quote — " Does tobacco
promote the higher life?" Here again I am
beggared for rejoinder ; if it be not that, for my
own part, I should think but poorly of a higher life
in which tobacco was not one factor of existence
and poetry another.
Do not cry shame on my apparent egoism, for
many and many another could say the like. Think
ofthepoetswhodrewtheir inspiration subtly blended
with tobacco-smoke — Milton, Byron, Moore, Camp-
bell, Burns, Scott, Lamb, Tennyson, Lowell, to
namie but a few at random. Think of that elo-
quently silent evening at Craigenputtock in 1833,
when Carlyle and Emerson, on either side of the
fire-place, puffed soberly with never a spoken
word till midnight, and then parted, shaking hands
with mutual congratulation on the profitable and
pleasant evening they had spent.* Think of
* Tennyson, as well as Emerson, has been credited wth
being Carlyle's companion on the occasion of this taciturn
feast of reason and tobacco. Like enon,!:,'h the story is true of
both.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
Buckle, the historian, with his memorable saying :
" There are two things for which I never grudge
money — books and cigars," Think of Charles
Lamb toiling after tobacco "as some men toil
after virtue." But enough, there is no need to
maintain the intimate connection of literature and
smoke; in very truth there is more tobacco in
literature than your man in the street would
imagine. I do not only mean specific reference to
its virtues ; some poets have been so thankless for
the benefits they have received thereby, as to say
naught of them in their works. Milton, for one,
missed his opportunities ; the Infernal Peers, whose
" great consult " begins at the end of the first book
of Pa?'adise Lost, would have found assistance in
their deliberations had smoking, a fairly character-
istic practice for Infernal Peers by the way, been
permitted. As for Adam and Eve, if they had not
tobacco-plants in Eden, it was a sorry place and
they were better out of it. But perhaps (poor souls)
they did not know to what use to put their plants,
until the Tree of Knowledge revealed all — and then
it was too late.
Jesting aside, it is hard to imagine the tobacco-
INTRODUCTION. xvii
less world before Jean Nicot, the king's advocate,
first sent its seeds to Catherine de Medicis. Not
one, but many volumes would be required for the
gathering in of nicotian poems, had smoking been
one of the manners of primitive man, or had
tobacco's blue whorls and lingering fragrance per-
vaded time's corridors from the Homeric age
onward. Homer would have given it mention, I
doubt not. The noble entertainment of Odysseus
in the house of Alcinous would have been yet
nobler had cigars formed part of it, and Troy
might never have fallen, had the Greeks immured
within the wooden horse incautiously lit their
pipes, and by stray wisps of smoke, wafted from
cracks and crevices, betrayed their presence to the
Trojans. But when "'Omer smote 'is bloomin'
lyre" tobacco was mere grass of the field, an
unregarded weed, wasting its sweetness on the
desert air. How deftly would Meleager or Simon-
ides have turned an epigram to bedeck a tobacco
jar, how gladly would Theocritus on occasion have
exchanged his oaten pipe for one of briar ! Above
all, I think of Horace as an eminent smoker — had
he only known. Can you not imagine the verses
b
xviH INTRODUCTION.
in which he would have celebrated the cigars of
Maecenas, smoked no doubt
" in remote gramine per dies
Festos reclinatum bearis
Interiore nota Falerni,"
or the humble churchwarden, drawn with an
infinite content in his beloved Sabine home ? For
indeed there is something highly suggestive of
tobacco in Horace ; it would have accorded so
well with his inspired Epicureanism, and have
given him so many happy images and similes.
With what I have quoted from the Roman poet,
I cannot forbear coupling a quatrain of another of
the smokers who might have been —
" A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread— and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow ! "
Here again we have the omission enforced by
time's dire necessity, all elements of happiness
save one, but that one of how much import ! *
* I notice that some one, signing himself II. A. L., in the
Sketch of January 2Gth, 1898, has endeavoured to supply the
deficiency : —
INTRODUCTION. xix
Browning might have known better, yet he wrote
in words that seem to echo his Persian prede-
cessor : —
"Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf,
Half a cheese, and a bottle of Cbablis ;
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais."
A pipe to follow had gone well with the Rabelais,
and served to the better oblivion of Sibrandus Schaf-
naburgensis. As a friend of ours once remarked
over a cigar, in a flash of sincerity: "Grand thing
eating — (puff) — makes you enjoy a smoke so much ! "
But enough of these might-have-beens and vain
regrets for what was lacking in antiquity. It may
well be that in Elysian pleasances, tobacco grows
beside the asphodel, and that Homer and Horace
and Omar Khayyam and Hafiz, and the rest, have
learnt the art that to their m.sfortune they knew
not this side of Styx. What here we have to deal
with is actually existent verse."^'
" An open sky, a road not over-rough,
A seasoned pipe and some good smoking stuff,
A trusty wheel with perfect tyres and cranks.
With these, methinks, 'twere Paradise enough."
* It should be said that, if there are no nicotian poems by
classical authors, there is one of considerable note ni a classical
XX INTRODUCTION.
The very fact of its being possible to compile
an anthology of smoke, proclaims it something
other than one of the common luxuries of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in his short story "A
Lodging for the Night," presents us with Villon
enditing a " Ballade of Roast Fish."' Yet not the
most practised of editors could bring a burden of
poems and verses in praise of a fish diet within his
net, spread he never so widely. And this although,
among the ancients, fish were esteemed as the
most potent sustenance of the brain. But then the
ancients, as I have but noted, knew naught of
tobacco, and scarce imagined that such virtues
could burgeon from a weed. When tobacco was
once discovered, these virtues had to wait no long
time for appreciation and praise. And here per-
haps I may fitly say something of a notable event
in history — the introduction of tobacco into our
own land.
Prometheus brought fire from heaven : that was
tongue. I refer, of course, to the elaborate " Hymnus Tabaci "
of Thorius, published in 1C27, two years after the author's
death. Dr. Raphael Thorius, in addition to the honours he
reaped in medicine and Latin verse, enjoyed a reputation, high
even for the age in which he lived, as an eminent toper of large
capacity.
INTRODUCTION. xxi
good no doubt, but Raleigh — or somebody else —
did better. He brought tobacco from America.
And it might be argued with much plausibility
that it is a vain thing to have fire without pipes to
light by it. For what nobler, more ethereal pur-
pose can that element have ? To warm us in
winter, to provide us with roast pig, to drag us
over the country at a mile a minute ? All very
good things, I deny not, but all appealing to our
grosser and more material instincts. A sufficiency
of heat and roast pig is necessary no doubt, so
possibly is speed in communication; but warmth
and pork cannot of themselves induce a tranquil
philosophy of life, and there are no express trains
to Paradise.
But who was the real Prometheus ? Not Raleigh
certainly, though Raleigh, as one who led rather
than followed fashion, must have been a prime
agent in tobacco's universal adoption. Raleigh
reached Virginia in July 15 84, but, if we are to
credit Edmund Howes in his continuation of
S/o7u's Amials, "Tabacco was first brought and
made known in England by Sir John Hawkins
about the yeere 1565, but not used by Englishmen
xxii INTRODUCTION.
in many yeeres after, though at this day [he is
writing in 163 1] commonly used by most men and
some women." "^ Howes must have been very
careless in correcting proofs, for on the self-same
page he says, '''' Apricocks^ Mellycato7is^ Miisk-
Millions^ and Tabacco came into England about
* other writers bear witness to our female ancestors' smoking
habits ; thus, for instance, a certain vohible Frenchman who
visited England in the seventeenth century : "Tabacco is very
much used in England. The very Women take it in abundance,
particular'y in the Westei-n Counties. But why the very Women?
What occasion is there for that very ? We wonder that in cer-
tain Places it should be common for Women to take Tabacco ;
and why should we wonder at it ? The Women of Devonshire
and Cornuall wonder that the Women of Middlesex do not
take Tabacco. And why should they wonder at it ? In truth,
our Wonderments are very pleasant Things I We wonder others
have not the same Customs that we have ; and others wonder
we have not the same Customs that they have. And I
pray which has the best Ground for their Wondering? We
London Folks are pleasant Fellows too, for excluding the
Women of Exeter from feeding upon Smoak as well as ourselve?!.
I would fain know by what Philosophy, Moral or Natural,
Tabacco should be allow'd the Men, and forbidden the Women.
Mere Fancies ! " And so on with farther floods of rather turgid
rhetoric intended to show that tobacco is responsible for the
profundity of English Theology, a theology which, in the
author's opinion, is infinitely superior to that shallower variety
" fit only for those mean souls that are for no more theology
than will just carry them to Heaven."— M. Misson's Memoirs
and Observations in his Travels over England. With some
Account of Scotland and Ireland, disposed in alphabetical order.
Translated by Mr. Ozell. London, 1710.
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
the twentieth yeere of Queene Elizabeth." As
Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, this makes
the date 1578; but yet another year has been
assigned for the kindling of that fire which will
never be put out in England. Those of the settlers
in the first British colony of Virginia who had
been saved from annihilation by Sir Francis Drake,
landed at Portsmouth in 1586, with Governor
Ralph Lane at their head, all smoking vigorously.
To the inhabitants of the sea-port, unwitting of the
weed, this procession of bronzed and bearded
veterans in seeming conflagration must have been
an object of mighty curiosity and marvelling,
though whether the Elizabethan equivalent for a
fire-engine was ordered out, history records not.
Once the fashion of smoking was introduced, it
rapidly grew into a craze. Authors, William
Barclay for instance, of whom more anon, dis-
coursed learnedly on its excellent effects on health,
and maintained its sovereign virtue as a pre-
servative against all disease, and as a means of
lengthening life. Other authors, w-ith equal assur-
ance and display of learning, proved it to be a
venomous drug that would undermine the British
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
Constitution, physical and political. Some of the
titles of these controversial books and pamphlets
are whimsical enough in themselves, as for example
the book of somebody styling himself Philaretes :
Work for Chimney-Sweepers J or^ a Warning for
Tabacco7iists. Describing the pernicious use of
Tabacco^ no less pleasant than profitable for all
sorts to reade : Fumus Patriae Igne alieno Lucu-
lentior. As much as to say, Better be chokt with
English Hemp, than poisoned with India7i Tabacco;
and a lengthy treatise in pedestrian verse — at the
third page of which, I confess, I stuck fast —
entitled Tabacco Battered and the Pipes shattered
about their Eares that idly idolise so base and
barbarous a Weed, or at least Wise overlove so
loathsome Vanity by a Volley of holy Shot thun-
dered from Mount Helicon. The source of the
"holy shot" cannot have been that indicated, but
it is titles such as these that make a mere cata-
logue of seventeenth century tractates fruitful of
entertainment.
People who had taken up with smoking for the
sake of either fashion or health, soon found,
despite such thunderous polemics as I have noted,
INTRODUCTION. xxv
that it was rather pleasant than otherwise; and
a new industry, that of tobacco-dealer, was in-
augurated. Some of the shops devoted to the
trade must have been of considerable splendour
for the time ; there was a maple block for shredding
the leaves, silver tongs for holding the coals, and
a fire of juniper at which the pipes were lighted.
So one learns from the Alcheinistj Face intro-
duces Abel Drugger to Subtle in these terms :
'• Doctor, do you bear !
This is my f tientl Abel, an bonest fellow ;
He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil.
Nor Avashes it in muscadel and grain?,
Nor buries it in gravel underground,
Wrapp'd up in greasy leather ;
But keeps it in fair lily pots, that open'd
Smell like conserve of roses or French bop.ns ;
He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of Juniper."
From which pregnant passage one can gather that
the gentle art of faking tobacco was in practice
then as now. In the drama indeed, the faithful
mirror of those times, we can learn how quickly
the fashion grew, just as a student of the late
Victorian era, some two hundred years hence,
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
will trace the development of cycling from con-
temporary novels, plays, and newspapers. Smoking
was a courtly accomplishment at the first — witness
Fastidious Brisk, who " speaks good remnants,
notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco : swears
tersely and with variety," or " the essential clown "
Sogliardo, who "comes up every Term to learn
to take tobacco and see new notions," or that
"unaffected, undetected, well-connected warrior"
Captain Bobadil, whose moving narration on the
subject I fain had quoted but for limits of space.
The same lack of space must withhold me from
tracing through the drama, how tobacco grew in
favour with all classes, even unto chimney-sweeps,"*
how it became " an herb generally received in the
courts of Princes, the chambers of nobles, the
bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers."t
Tobacco in short had come, and the fact of this
book's existence proves that it had come to
stay.
Unfortunately for my purpose, tobacco at the
outset of its career somewhat lacked adequate
* According to Jonson's The De'il is an Ass, Act I., ^c. 1.
t JEvery Man in his Humour, Act III., Sc. 3.
INTRODUCTION. xxvii
lyrical celebration. You who have read Mr.
Bullen's delightful anthologies know how the
England of this, our true Augustan age, was
as "a nest of singing birds." But, despite
the numberless allusions scattered through the
dramatists— especially Ben Jonson, there are but
few songs or short poems devoted to tobacco.
These few however are, if naught else, character-
istic and charming. " Tobacco's a Musician," for
instance— one can imagine a smoking concert of
our seventeenth century forbears with this song's
turbulent chorus making the beneficent tobacco
clouds reel and gyrate among the rafters shaking
with lusty sound.
" This makes me sing, soho, solio, boyed,
Ho, boyes, sound I loudly ;
Earth ne'er did breed
Such a jovial weed,
Whereof to boast so proudly I "
And in less jovial mood, when purses were
empty even of "the ridiculously small amount of
eighteen pence," when friends grown obdurate by
reason of repeated borrowing, were not to be
persuaded to raise the wind, it was in tobacco that
xxviii INTRODUCTION.
the "boyes" found solace from niggard fortune.
Hear, for instance, Samuel Rowlands "in the fell
clutch of circumstance" airily proclaiming the
virtues of a smoke diet.*
But it was not only the wits, roisterers, and
genial rake-hells who may be conveniently com-
prehended under the generic name of "boyes,"
that in verse protested their love of tobacco.
That serious and prodigiously learned writer,
William Barclay, M.A., M.D., not content with
counterblasting the great counterblast of his
sovereign lord in a medical treatise of such
luxuriant prose as makes our modern scientific
works seem naught but ditch v/ater beside it,t
wrote six short poems of quaint charm, that, as
it were, breathe the very fragrance of the
good physician's panacea. For the most, gravely
polemical in utterance, they have what polemics
can but seldom achieve, a very real poetry, though
Barclay, modest man, protests of "never hav-
* See page 12.
t Nepenthes, or the Vertues of Tahacco : by William Barclay,
Mr. of Art, and Doctor of Physicke. Edinburgh: Printed by
Aiidro Hart, and arc to be sold at his S'w}) on the North Side of
the Hi'jh Street, a little beneath the Crosse. Anno Dom. 1614.
INTRODUCTION. xxix
ing sleped in Parnassus, but beeing a Valley
Poete."
A yet graver note is touched in " The Indian
Weed," one of the several versions of which I
include in the volume.* Though its continuation
by Ralph Erskine is of the eighteenth century, it
naturally follows in sequence, and I have so placed
it here. Whether all their readers have followed
the pious counsels of these two poems in entirety
may be doubted; but if they have not assimilated
the tract, they have indeed taken kindly to the
tobacco wrapped within it, and implicitly obeyed
the second part of our poets' injunction.
But you ask me, What of the eighteenth century ?
Alas! the eighteenth century has but little to offer
us in tobacco verse, to my knowledge at least.
The bulk of what can be quoted is comprehended
in Isaac Hawkins Browne's elaborate string of
parodies— which, as parodies, are excellent. Pipes,
it may be conjectured, appeared of too little dignity
for an age of poetical deportment. Snuff, too, had
usurped their place in polite circles, and snuff
(I am open to contrary evidence) does not inspire
* See page 19, and Notes, page 259.
XXX INTRODUCTION.
to verse apparently, for Southey's " Snuff" and
" J'ai du bon Tabac dans ma Tabati^re""^ are only
exceptions proving a rule. William Cowper, fi7i de
Steele poet, to use the phrase in naked literality,
had in both poems and letters a good deal to
say concerning smoking; and its temporary dis-
comfiture by snuff is the subject of a pretty
triviality in verse.t It is not the weed in powder,
but the weed in the pipe that Henry Fielding —
who certainly cannot be accused of too excessive
deportment — celebrates in verses which had been
better lacking a vain attempt to achieve the im-
possible— find a rhyme for tobacco.
In mere bulk, the store of nineteenth century
tobacco verse far outweighs that of both the pre-
ceding centuries. I use the word " bulk " com-
paratively, however; for, after all, the anthologist's
field of selection is none too wide, and his judgment
must at times be elastic and capable of strain. But
it is none of my business, nay, 'twere churlish, to
invite special attention to a certain amount of chaff
which this volume may include — the critical reader
* A spirited translation which ]Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland
(Hans Breitmann) has kindly made for this volurae •svill be
found on page 36. t See page 4S,
INTRODUCTION. xxxi
must thresh it out himself. Let any wielding of
the flail I may do here serve rather to confirm that
reader's estimate of the finest of the wheat. From
the three greatest poets of our generation, indeed,
nothing can be quoted. To the case of Tennyson
and Browning I have already alluded as dispassion-
ately as may be; Mr. Swinburne's silence finds
melancholy justification in the fact that he is re-
ported to have an aversion from the weed. Let
me tell you a little story — my excuse for such a
personality must be that the story is possibly
untrue — in this connection. IMr. Swinburne, so it
goes, once entered the Arts Club, and sought in
vain to find a room that was not filled with
smokers, whereupon he delivered himself aloud
as follows: — "James the First was a knave, a
tyrant, a fool, a liar, a coward; but I love him, I
worship him, because he slit the throat of that
blackguard Raleigh, who invented this filthy
smoking!"* But if I have no contribution from
* But Raleigh, according to an anonymous epigrammatist,
has had his revenge :
" Sir Walter Raleigh ! name of worth,
How sweet for thee to know
King James, who never smoked on earth.
Is smoking dovm below 1 "
xxxii INTRODUCTION.
these three poets to offer, at least I have several
by men who, if not great poets, are real poets,
capable both of knowing what to say, and of
knowing how to say it with distinction and
grace.
As you know, I have made some endeavour to
group, I shall not say classify, the poems in the
third section of the volume. Such grouping is
possible, for do we not find one bard celebrating
the Cigar, another the Pipe, a third tobacco in
its fireside aspects, while others make of it an
obligato for a love lyric or a text and illustration
of the instability and brevity of human life ? And
so first of all come cigar verses, beginning with
a well-known excerpt from Byron's "Island" with
its culminating note of ecstatic appeal. As an
exercise in rhyming, if nothing more, Tom Hood's
"Cigar" is as good as was, I hope, the Havanna
that inspired it, and its Epicurean philosophising
is almost Horatian. A like train of feehng is
followed by other of the cigar-devotees. Fiat
jusHHa^ mat ca^Ium^ is a saying hackneyed and
of respectable antiquity. "Let the heavens fall,
so be it that our cigar go not out," may be taken
INTRODUCTION. xxxili
as a modern variation on the same theme. But
Lowell in his " Ode of Thanks for Certain Cigars "
(good cigars must they have been to merit such
charming thanks) has more regard for powers
above, and ingeniously urges that
"Perhaps that smoke with incense ranks
Which curls from 'mid life's jars and cranks,
Graceful with happiness and thanks."
If Lowell could thus reverentially enjoy cigars
and gracefully thank their donors, he also knew
the joys, the infinite beatitude of the Pipe, and
the almost nervous pride of the possessor of the
meerschaum of exceeding great price :
" While slowly o'er its candid bowl
The colour deepens (as the soul
That burns in mortals leaves its trace
Of bale or beauty on the face)."
With the two poems from which I have quoted
Lowell has every claim to be a pious memory
in the minds of all good smokers, even had he
not written the beautiful " Winter Evening Hymn
to my Fire," where tobacco, as an essential
element in the fireside comfort, finds meet
acknowledgment. Do you remember that half-
xxxiv INTRODUCTION.
comic, half-pathetic story in Mr. Barrie's Afy
Lady Nicotine^ of the man who, cruel destiny
incarnate in a wife having forbidden smoking,
hears with a painful fascination the fellow next
door knocking the ashes from his pipe, night by
night, and feels the more keenly a sense of
bereavement? The decision of the hero of Mr.
Kipling's "Betrothed" had stood that strayed
bachelor in good stead :
" A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke ;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
Be not offended at this last citation ; there are
women and women, even as there are cigars and
cigars, — and are you not a very Villar y Villar
among women ? You know well that a fireside
lacking a pipe-rack is, shall I say, as a temple
lacking an altar.
We have several poems devoted to such visions
of past and futurity as the fireside smoker beholds
in curling smoke and glowing coals— the phantas-
magoria of life that Memory the showman marshals
before one ; ghost faces of those loved long since
that escape into life again from the secret chambers
INTRODUCTION. xxxv
of oblivion unlocked by this same potent liberator,
tobacco ; castles in Spain, of spacious courts, and
soaring towers, and banners that flaunt the heavens.
Or, if It please our fireside magician, he bears one
to the four corners of the world with such ease
as Mr. Irving' Brov.-ne describes in his " Smoke
Traveller." Most o^'ten perhaps it is an Eastern
journey that is made, and the heroes and heroines
of romance that come before one step from the
glowing pages of the Arabia7i Nights or the Shav-
ing of Shagpat. Judging from the experience of
Mr. Aldrich, as reflected in his poem on page
132, Latakia may be confidently prescribed for
him who desires visions and memories such as
these.
Almost following on these fantasies of the fireside
come a couple of pieces of a quasi-historical kind.
" How it once was " narrates an incident in the
early years of New York which you will remember
is told with great gusto in that masterpiece of
humorous history, Knickerbocker' s History of New
York. Perhaps an apology is needed for lifting
from its context a passage in The Trumpeter of
Siickingenj but the vigour of the passage, even
xxxvi INTRODUCTION.
through the medium of translation, and its self-
completeness, are the best apologies that can be
made. Certainly no apology is wanted for the
next number in the anthology, Mr. Leland's
" Tobacco et Baccho," since it is the one poem of
practical import in the volume with the exception
of the dialect verses in praise of "The Pipe you
make yourself," which appear on a later page.
In Hans Breitmann, Mr. Leland created one of
the modern world's great humorous figures, one
not unworthy to stand beside FalstafF, Don Quixote,
and Sam Weller; and it is pleasant to think that
one of Breitmann's profoundest utterances, his
" Rauchlied," is also cogent to our present purpose.
"A slave is each man to the weed," sings Mr.
Brander Matthews, and finds "perfect wisdom" in
his final allegiance to the Pipe. Many are the
voices raised in lyric love of it. " O ! " says
Rosalind in As You Like It, " how full of briars
is this working-day world!" Ay, she might have
added, and with corn-cobs and cherries, with
meerschaums and churchwardens as well. And
each of these has had its especial laureate. Here,
for example, is Mr. W. A. Mackenzie eulogising in
INTRODUCTION. xxxvli
an ingeniously contrived villanelle his trusty old
clay. But from the next page sounds the voice
of contradiction — the intolerant voice of the true
devotee :
" I hear you fervently extol
The virtues of your ancient clay,
As black as any piece of coal.
To me it smells of rank decay
And bones of people passed away, —
A smell I never could admire.
With all respect to you I say,
Give me a finely seasoned briar."
Be no such narrow orthodoxies mine : there is
room in my affections, as you know, for every
manner of pipe, a time and a place for all — a church-
warden is scarce satisfactory for a walk across a
windy moorland, one cannot pensively suck one's
hookah on the roof of an omnibus. But tobacco,
whatever its vehicle, is with us alv.ays. I ha\-e
spoken of it in its fireside aspects ; its virtues are
none the less below the open sky; 'tis the best
travelling companion for the happy v%'anderer, the
scholar gipsy, who on foot, or it may be awheel,
escapes from streets and city folk to know for a
while "the gay fresh sentiment of the road," to
wander over moor and fell, thronrdi v.'ondland and
xxxviii INTRODUCTION.
meadow, from the rising up of the sun to the going
down of the same. It is a strain of such feeling
that inspires the anonymous number " On the
Tramp," and the verses, mediocre perhaps, but at
least sincere, entitled " What I like."
There is one aspect of the case, however, which
you marvel, no doubt, that the author of this last
omitted to touch on. Love and tobacco— mayhap
he felt his powers inadequate to such a theme, or
perhaps he is a misogynist, and flees from men —
and women — to smoke in solitary contemplation.
But not all our smokers are like this, as you
know : —
" r.Iy dream is rounded with my pipe,
My pipe and You."
There are who find a rarer charm in their sweet-
heart's face when wisps of smoke float between,
and he is but a poor lover that does not take
greatest pleasure in a cigarette of her making,
especially if she, in the spirit of Mrs. Radford's
"Novice," be not loth to take one herself. For
doing thus is she not like to prove the better, more
sympathetic mate for him? It can only have been
because "coquette" rhymes with "cigarette" that
INTRODUCTION. xxxix
l\Ir. Lummis made Kate, in his cynical verses on
page 198, serve him so despitefully. If all v/omen
sought comfort in a cigarette, how great a relief
would that be from those variations on the theme
of bickering and fault-finding to which the best of
them are at times addicted ! But I am not a
missioner of the Smoky Gospel of domestic
quietude ; it were a thankless task, for, though I
spoke with the tongues of men and of angels, I
would be powerless to convince some women that
tobacco smoke is not injurious to curtains, or that
its ashes are good for carpets, and scare away the
playful moth.
It must be the dread of happening on such a
Vv'ife as these that inspires poems like " On the
Brink" and "A Warning." It is better for us to
think of such contrasted sentiments as those of
j^rliss Carrington's " Scent of a good Cigar," or of
James Thomson's " Grey clouds come puffing
from my lips;" for love and tobacco go as well
together as — let us say, strawberries and cream.
Fair ladies, a word in your collective ear — mistrust
the man who would have you believe that, by
reason of his love-sickness, he has no stomach for
xl INTRODUCTION.
tobacco. Either 'tis the deceit of one that wov.ld
simulate a more distracted heart than that he
possesses, or else, if he really speak the truth and
his pipe be cold and smokeless as the barren altar
of a creed outworn, he is of an uncertain, a mer-
curial habit of mind ; and the reaction from his
present exaltation may be greater than you would
desire. Far wiser is it to rest content in the
enjoyment of a limited monarchy, a monarchy
divided with his tobacco jar, that best protection
against jars of another order.
If smoke may thus legitimately form an element
in the atmosphere of love, it is an essential element
in the atmosphere of Bohemia, still, although its
name has been dragged through the deepest mire
of respectability, a delectable kingdom to which
the elect may attain. What if the name be thus
tainted? Is the suburban tradesman who dubs his
harmonic club at the local pot-house a " Bohemian
Concert " any the nearer being a citizen of the
commonwealth to which he professes to aspire ?
Does he dream that by some subtle metem-
psychosis the soul of a Prince Hal or a Warrington
— to name two typical Bohemians — has found new
INTRODUCTION. xli
lodging in his mortal frame? Vain must be his
hopes, and scarce less vain the hopes of such as
once have been dwellers in the land and would fain
renew its acquaintance. There is no angel with
forbidding frown and flaming sword to guard the
gate, yet the prosperous novelist, the actor adored
of society, can but seldom pass the threshold. At
the end of the day you will find him in dress
clothes, sipping dry sherry, and reading Stock
Exchange quotations — a repulsive spectacle for
gods and men. Of the regrets of the Bohemian
declasse you may read in Mr. Fawcett's " Pipes
and Beer," of Bohemia's aspirations in " If I were
King," of her pleasures in " Inter Sodales," of her
easy philosophy in George Arnold's " Cigars and
Beer," of her less idyllic side, in the vivid impres-
sion rendered into words by Mr. Arthur Symons
which appears on page 223.
To close the anthology with fitting gravity are
one or two lyrics of a more or less thoughtful
cast. " Sedative, gently clarifying tobacco smoke
(if the room be well ventilated, open atop, and the
air kept good)," says Carlyle somewhere, " wnth
the obligation to a minimum of speech, surely
xlii INTRODUCTION.
gives human intellect and insight the best chance
they can have." What is the verdict of human
intellect and insight thus impregnate with tobacco
smoke on man and his destiny? It is a chastened,
a resigned view that the typical smoker takes, an
acceptance of the must-be's of human life, without
that undue striving after the unconditioned which
moved Goethe to pity. In a sense the philosophy
of the Pipe carries on the traditions of the philo-
sophy of the Rose, that most sweetly reasonable
of all philosophies, which apparently has possessed
certain souls ever since the dark riddle of existence
first began to cry aloud for solution. In every age
of the world's literature, in the Book of Wisdom,
in the Odes of Horace, in Omar Khayyd,m, in
Pierre Ronsard, in Robert Herrick, one may read
of the Rose that buds and blooms, lives its short
life of fragrance and colour, and all too soon
droops to decay. Pipes and tobacco have already
served a like symbolism in literature from Eliza-
bethan days, when Thomas Dekker in a pregnant
simile spoke of " that lean, tawny face tobacconist.
Death, that turns all into smoke," to our own time
when Mr. Theo. Marzials finds that
INTRODUCTION. xliii
"... life is like a pipe,
And love is the fusee ;
The pipe draws well, but bar the light,
And what's the use to me ?"
IVhat, indeed? With which question, that you have
made unanswerable, let me bring these rambHng
remarks to a close, and subscribe myself,
WILLIAM G. HUTCHISON.
London, May 1S9S.
Seventeentb Century Smolders.
Sganarelle, tenant une tabatihre:—
"Quoi qxie puissent dire Aristote et toute la philosophies il
n'est rien d'dgal au tahae; c'est la passion des honnttes gens,
et qui vit sans tabae n'est pas digne de vivre. Non seulement
il rdjouit et purge les cerveaux humains, mais encore il instruit
les dmes d la vertu, et Von apprend avec lid d devenir honnSte
homme. Ne voyez-vous pas Men, dis qii'on en prend, de quelle
manihre obligeante on en use avec tout le monde, et comme on
est ravi d'en donner d droite et d gauche, partout oil Von
se trouve ? On n'attend pas mSme que Von en demande, et Von
court audevant du souhait des gens: taut il est vrai que le
tabae inspire des sentiments O'honneur et de xertn d tons cevx
qui en prennent."
— MOLiEPvE, Don Juan (1CG5).
TO HIS GOOD AND OLDE FRIEND. 3
TO IIIS GOOD AND OLDE FRIEND,
M. ALEXANDER CRAIG.
Craig, if thou knowes the veitues of this plant,
Why dost thou dye thy quill in Inke of blame ?
If thou knowes not, for to supplie thy want,
Why followes thou the voice of faining fame ?
Is it not slander to this plant and thee,
To speake of it so poeticallie ?
William Barclay,
TO HIS GOOD COUSING.
TO HIS GOOD COUSING, 11. JOHN HAY
OF RAMASSE.
Hanibal had a house in Bythinie^
Builded after his craftie owne conceat ;
On eurie side a doore was priuilie,
For to preserue his life and staggering state,
But when the Romanes came for to defait
The onelie one of whom they stood in doubt,
Hanibal would not fight against his fate,
Knowing the doores were knowne and siegde
about :
Good Cousing Hay, the soule is Hanibal^
The house with many doores it is the head,
Death and disease as Ro77ianes siege them all
To suffocat the life without remead :
Unless diuine Tahacco make defence,
Keepe open doores, and raise the siege from
thence.
William Barclay.
TO THE ABUSERS OF TABACCO.
TO THE ABUSERS OF TABACCO.
Why doe you thus abuse this heauenlie plant,
The hope of health, the fewell of our life ?
Why doe you waste it without feare of want,
Since fine and true Tabacco is not ryfe ?
Olde Euclio went foull water for to spair,
And stop the bellowes not to waste the Air.
William Barclay.
TO MY LORD THE BISHOP.
TO MY LORD THE BISHOP OF MURRAY.
The statelie, rich, late conquered Indian plaines
Foster a plant, the princes of all plants,
Which Portugall after perill and paines,
To Europe broght, as it most iustlie vants :
This plant at home the people and Priests assure,
Of his goodwill, whom they as God adore,
Both here and there it worketh wondrous cure.
And hath such heauenlie vertue hid in store.
A stranger plant shipwracked in our coast,
Is come to help this cold phlegmatick soyle,
Yet cannot liue for calumnie and boast.
In danger daylie of some greater broyle :
My Lord this sacred herb which neuer offendit
Is forcde to craue your fauour to defend it.
William Barclay.
TO PHILOCLEA.
TO THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED AND TRUE
PHILOCLEA OF THIS YLE, L. E. L. L. F.
Some do this plant with odious crymes disgrace,
And call the poore Tabacco homicid,
They say that it, O what a monstrous cace !
Forestals the life, and kills man in the seed,
It smoaketh, blacketh, burneth all the braine,
It dryes the moisture treasure of the life,
It cureth not, but stupifies the pain,
It cuts our dayes before Atropus knife.
Good Ladie looke not to these rauing speeches,
You know by proof that all these blames are lies,
Forged by scuruie, leud, vnlearned Leiches,
As time hath taught, and practice that all tryes.
Tabacco neither altereth health nor hew.
Ten thousand thousands know that it is true.
William Barclay,
TO HIS DEARE COUSING.
TO HIS VERY WORSHIPFULL AND DEARE ]
COUSING, THE LAIRD OF BOINE.
The gut which Vulcan forged in his yre
To punish those which follow Vemcs way, J
Can finde nothing to quench that flaming fyre, J
So fit as fine Tabacco sundrie say,
For proof of which great Pillar of my kin
Tell what thou knowest: for to conceale were sin.
William Barclay.
"TOBACCO'S A MUSICIAN/
"TOBACCO'S A MUSICIAN."
Tobacco's a Musician,
And in a pipe delighteth ;
It descends in a close,
Through the organs of the nose,
With a relish that inviteth.
Chorus —
This makes me sing, soho, soho, boyes,
Ho, boyes, sound I loudly ;
Earth ne'er did breed
Such a jovial weed,
Whereof to boast so proudly !
Tobacco is a Lawyer,
His pipes do love long cases ;
When our braines it enters
Our feet do make indentures,
While we seal with stamping paces.
Tobacco's a Physician,
Good both for sound and sickly ;
'Tis a hot perfume
That expels cold rheume.
And makes it flow down quickly.
lo "TOBACCO'S A MUSICIAN."
Tobacco is a Traveller,
Come from the Indies hither ;
It passed sea and land
Ere it came to my hand,
And 'scaped the wind and weather.
Tobacco is a Crittlcke,
That still old paper turneth,
Whose labour and care
Is smoke in the aire,
That ascends from a rag when it burneth.
Tobacco's an ignis fatuus,
A fat and fyrie vapoure,
That leads men about
Till the fire be out,
Consuming like a taper.
Tobacco is a WhyfHcr
That cries "Huff Snuff," with furie;
His pipes, his club and linke,
He's wiser that does drink ;
Thus armed I fear not a furie.
Chorus — This makes me sing, etc.
Barton Holiday ^
EPIGRAM. II
EPIGRAM.
(From Hwnor's Looking Glasse^ 1608.)
Cross not my humor with an ill plac'd wordc,
For if thou doest, behold my fatal sworde !
Do'st see my countenance begin looke red ?
Let that fore-tell ther's furie in my hed ;
A little discontent will quickly heate it.
Touch not my stake, thou werte as goode to eate it !
These damned dice, how cursed they devoure :
I lost some half score pound in halfe an houre :
A bowle of wine, siiha ! you villaine fill !
Who drawes it, rascall ? call me hether WilL
You rogue, what ha'st to supper for my dyet ?
Tel'st me of butcher's meate? knave, I defie it.
I'le have a banquet to envite an earle,
A Pkcenix boylde in broth distil'd in pearle,
Holde ! drie this leafe ; a candle quickly bring,
I'le take one pipe to bed, none other thing.
Thus with Tabacco he will sup to-night :
Flesh-meate is heavie and his purse is light.
Samuel Rowlands.
12 IN PRAISE OF TOBACCO.
IN PRAISE OF TOBACCO.
To feed on flesh is gluttony,
It maketh men fat like swine j
But is not he a frugal man
That on a leaf can dine ?
He needs no linnen for to foul
His fingers' ends to wipe,
That has his kitchen in a box.
And roast meat in a pipe.
The cause wherefore few rich men's sons
Prove disputants in schools.
Is that their fathers fed on flesh,
And they begat fat fools.
This fulsome feeding cloggs the brain
And doth the stomach choak.
But he's a brave spark that can dine
With one light dish of smoak.
Samuel Rowlands.
SONNET. 13
SONNET.
Upon a faggot seated, pipe in lips,
Leaning my head against the chimney wall,
My heart sinks in me, down my eyelids fall.
As all alone I think on life's eclipse.
Hope, that puts off to-morrow for to-day,
Essays to change my sadness for awhile,
And shows me with her kind and youthful smile
A fate more glorious than men's words can say.
Meantime the herb in ashes sinks and dies ;
Then to its sadness back my spirit flies.
And the old troubles still rise up behind.
Live upon hope and smoke your pipe : all's one.
It means the same when life is passed and done;
One is but smoke, the other is but wind.
Le Sietir de Saint-Amant^
trans, by Sir Walter Besant,
SONNET.
SONNET.
Of careless souls this is the meeting-place,
Which sometimes I frequent for my delight.
The master calls himself La Plante with right,
For to a plant his fortune he can trace.
You see there Bilot pale as in sad case,
From both whose nostrils vapour takes its flight
While Sallard tickles at the servant light,
Who laughs with nose up and fore-shortened face.
How much this one-eyed better friends must be
With Fortune than those alchemists we see
From wise becoming mad, from rich quite poor !
They find at length their health and strength decay
Their money all in smoke consumed away ;
But he from smoke gets money more and more.
Le Sietir de Saint- Ainant,
trans, by James Tho77ison.
SMOKE IS THE FOOD OF LOVERS. 15
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 vapours of their heart's desire.
No other food his votaries require ;
For that they seek — the favour of the fair —
Is unsubstantial as the smoke and air.
Jacob Ca/Sf trans, by Richard Pigot,
i6 AN ENCOMIUM ON TOBACCO.
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 toiHng alchemist,
Who daily labours 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 favour 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 ;
AN ENCOMIUM ON TOBACCO. i?
'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 a man's 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.
AN ENCOMIUM ON TOBACCO.
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.
Ancny7noiis: 7'i7ne,Ja?nes I.
THE INDIAN WEED. 19
THE INDIAN WEED.
This Indian weed, now withered quite,
Though green at noon, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay;
All flesh is hay :
Thus think, and drink 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 drink tobacco.
And when the smoke ascends on high,
Then thou behold'st the vanity
Of worldly stuff,
Gone with a puff:
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
And when the pipe grows foul within,
Think on thy soul defiled with sin j
For then the fire
It does require :
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
20 THE INDIAN WEED.
And seest the ashes cast away,
Then to thyself thou mayest say,
That to the dust
Return thou must :
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
I
SMOKING SPIRITUALISED. 21
SMOKING SPIRITUALISED.
Was this small plant for thee cut down ?
So was the plant of great renown,
Which lilercy sends
For nobler ends.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
Doth 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.
22 SMOKING SPIRITUALISED.
The smoke, like burning incense, towers,
So should a praying heart of yours,
With ardent cries,
Surmount the skies.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
Ralph Erskine.
I
SONNET ON TOBACCO. 23
SONNET ON TOBACCO.
Sweetest enchantment of my solitude,
Companion glowing — Pipe — sublime delight ;
To my duU'd soul thou bringest clearest sight,
To my sad heart a calm and happy mood.
Tobacco ! rapture of my mind, when I
See like the lightning, vanish in the air
Thy smoke, I find an image striking, rare,
Of my life's feebleness and brevity.
With eloquence thou tellest unto me
What I, alas ! alas ! must one day be^
I, animated ashes — and I feel
Confused, ashamed, that, running after smoke,
I lose myself, like thee ; thou dost evoke
Regrets when most thou dost thy charms reveal.
Fratn the French of Graevius.
Bi^bteentb Century Smolders.
Hail ! social piyc—tliou foe to care,
Companion of my elbow chair;
As forth thy curling fumes ariije,
They seem an evening sacrifice-—
An offering to my Makers praise,
For all Ills hcnefUs and grace.
Dr. Garth.
SWEET SMOAKING PIPE. 27
SWEET SMOAKING PIPE.
Sweet smoaking Pipe, bright-glowing Stove,
Companion still of my Retreat,
Thou dost my gloomy Thoughts remove,
And purge my Brain with gentle Heat.
Tabacco, 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 ?
Thou shew'st me what my Fate will be ;
And when my sinking Ashes die,
I learn that I must end like thee.
28 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
In Imitation of Six Several Authors.
IMITATION I.
(COLLEY ClBBER.)
" Laudes egregii Caesar is—
Culpa deterere ingeni."
—Horace.
A NEW YEAR'S ODE.
Recitativo.
Old battle array big with horror is fled,
And olive-robed peace again lifts up her head.
Sing, ye Muses, Tobacco, the blessing of peace
Was ever a nation so blessed as this ?
Air.
When summer suns grow red with heat,
Tobacco tempers Phoebus' ire.
When wintry storms around us beat,
Tobacco cheers with gentle fire.
Yellow autumn, youthful spring,
In thy praises jointly sing.
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 29
Recilalivo.
Like Neptune, Cxsar guards Virginian fleets,
Fraught with Tobacco's balmy sweets ;
Old Ocean trembles at Britannia's pow'r,
And Boreas is afraid to roar.
Air.
Happy mortal ! He who knows
Pleasure which a Pipe bestows ;
Curling eddies climb the room,
Wafting round a mild perfume.
Reci!ativo.
Let foreign climes the vine and orange boast,
While wastes of war deform the teeming coast ;
Britannia, distant from each hostile sound,
Enjoys a Pipe, v/ith ease and freedom crown'd ;
E'en restless Faction finds itself most free,
Or if a slave, a slave to Liberty.
Air.
Smiling years that gayly run
Round the Zodiack with the sun.
Tell, if ever you have seen
Realms so quiet and serene,
Britain's sons no longer now
Hurl the bar, or twang the bow,
Nor of crimson combat think,
But securely smoke and drink.
30 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Chorus.
Smiling years that gayly run
Round the Zodiack with the sun,
Tell, if ever you have seen
Realms so quiet and serene.
IMITATION II.
(Ambrose Phillips.)
"Tenues fugit ceu fumus in auras."
—Yirgil.
Little tube of mighty pow'r,
Charmer of an idle hour,
Object of my warm desire.
Lip of wax, and eye of fire :
And thy snowy taper waist,
With my finger gently brac'd ;
And thy pretty swelling crest.
With my little stopper prest,
And the sv>'eetest bliss of blisses.
Breathing from thy balmy kisses.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen.
Happiest he of happy men ;
Who when agen the night returns,
When agen the taper burns;
When agen the cricket's gay
(Little cricket, full of play),
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 31
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed :
Pleasure for a nose divine,
Incense of the god of wine.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen.
Happiest he of happy men.
IMITATION III.
(James Thomson.)
"... Prorumpit ad asthera nubem
Turbine fumantem piceo."
— Virgil.
O Thou, matur'd by glad Hesperian suns,
Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid truth.
That looks the very soul ', whence pouring thouglit
Swarms all the mind ; absorpt is yellow care.
And at each puff imagination burns.
Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires
Touch the mysterious lip, that chaunts thy praise
In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.
Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines
Of ductile clay, with plastic virtue form'd.
And glaz'd magnifick o'er, I grasp, I fill.
From Pcetotheke with pungent pow'rs perfum'd,
Itself one tortoise all, where shines imbib'd
Each parent ray; then rudely ram'd illume,
With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet,
32 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Mark'd with Gibsonian lore ; forth issue clouds,
Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around,
And many-mining fires : I all the while.
Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm.
But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join
In genial strife and orthodoxal ale,
Stream life and joy into the Muses' bowl.
Oh be thou still my great inspirer, thou
My Muse ; oh fan me with thy zephyrs boon,
While I, in clouded tabernacle shrin'd.
Burst forth all oracle and mystick song.
IMITATION IV.
(Edward Young.)
"... Bullatis mihi nugis,
Pagina turgescat, dare pondus idonea fumo."
—Persetis.
Criticks avaunt ; Tobacco is my theme ;
Tremble like hornets at the blasting stream.
And you, court-insects, flutter not too near
Its light, nor buzz within the scorching sphere.
Pollio, with flame like thine, my verse inspire,
So shall the Muse from smoke elicit fire.
Coxcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff;
Yet all their claim to wisdom is — a puff:
Lord Fopling smokes not — for his teeth afraid :
Sir Tawdry smokes not — for he wears brocade.
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 33
Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon ;
They love no smoke, except the smoke of town ;
But courtiers hate the puffing tribe, — no matter,
Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter !
Its foes but shew their ignorance; can he
Who scorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree ?
The tainted templar (more prodigious yet)
Rails at Tobacco, tho' it makes him — spit.
Citronia vows it has an odious stink;
She will not smoke (ye gods !) but she will drink :
And chaste Prudella (blame her if you can)
Says, pipes are us'd by that vile creature Man :
Yet crowds remain, who still its worth proclaim,
While some for pleasure smoke, and some for fame :
Fame, of our actions universal spring,
For which we drink, eat, sleep, smoke, — ev'rything.
IMITATION V.
(Alexander Pope.)
"... Solis ad ortus
Vanescit fumus."
— Lucan.
Blest leaf ! whose aromatick gales dispense
To templars modesty, to parsons sense :
So raptur'd priests, at fam'd Dodona's shrine
Drank inspiration from the steam divine.
34 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Poison that cures, a vapour that affords
Content, more soHd than the smile of lords :
Rest to the weary, to the hungry food,
The last kind refuge of the wise and good.
Inspir'd by thee, dull cits adjust the scale
Of Europe's peace, when other statesmen fail.
By thee protected, and thy sister, beer,
Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.
Nor less the critick owns thy genial aid,
While supperless he plies the piddling trade.
What tho' to love and soft delights a foe,
By ladies hated, hated by the beau,
Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown.
Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.
Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,
And let me taste thee unexcis'd by kings.
IMITATION VI.
(Jonathan Swift.)
" Ex furao dare lucem."
—Hor.
Boy ! bring an ounce of Freeman's best.
And bid the vicar be my guest :
This village, unmolested yet
By troopers, shall be my retreat :
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 35
Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray j
Who cannot write or vote for pay.
Far from the vermin of the town,
Here let me rather live, my own,
Doze o'er a pipe, whose vapour bland
In sweet oblivion lulls the land ;
Of all which at Vienna passes,
As ignorant as Brass is :
And scorning rascals to caress.
Extol the days of good Queen Bess,
When first Tobacco blest our isle.
Then think of other Queens — and smile.
Come jovial pipe, and bring along
Midnight revelry and song;
The merry catch, the madrigal.
That echoes sweet in City Hall;
The parson's pun, the smutty tale
Of country justice o'er his ale.
I ask not what the French are doing,
Or Spain to compass Britain's ruin :
Britons, if undone, can go.
Where Tobacco loves to grow.
Isaac Hawkins Browne.
36 "J'AI DU BON TABAC."
»J'AI DU BON TAB AC."
I HAVE good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but ne'er a rap for thee;
Both fine and rappee, but don't suppose
That they are meant for your poor nose.
For I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, both powdered and rappee ;
I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee !
This well-knov\'n song which my father sang
Had but one verse when I was young,
But I determine and propose
To make it as long as this my nose ;
For I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee !
The eldest son of a baron great
Inherited the whole estate ;
Thus to his brother did he say :
*'I am the elder — be an abbe !
For I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee ! "
"J'AI DU BON TABAC." 37
A usurer his job completed,
And not a drop is left to skim,
Says to the wretch whom he has cheated,
When he's completely finished him :
" I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee ! "
Judges and lawyers with a client,
Whom they have flayed close as they can,
To him, no longer soft and pliant.
They cry, *' Be out of this, my man !
For I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee ! "
An actress had a heart, and set it —
On a diamond brooch a banker wore ;
He said, " Don't you wish that you may get it ?
But then you won't — of that be sure 1
For I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, both powdered and rappee
I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, and deil a rap for thee ! "
Those who deny that Voltaire is clever,
Have too bad a cold in the head to smell ;
The perfume will escape them ever.
Till the catarrh be cured and well ;
38 "J'AI DU BON TABAC."
For he has good tobacco, tobacco in his snuff-box,
He has finely scented, as I can smell and see ;
He has good tobacco, tobacco in his snuff-box,
But if not up to snuff, there's none of it for thee !
Behold eight verses which I offer,
Full many more on the theme might be ;
But I am afraid that some jolly snuffer
May cry aloud, while he laughs at me :
" I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
I have good tobacco, both powdered and rappee
I have good tobacco, tobacco in my snuff-box,
Very good tobacco, but deil a rap for thee ! "
The Abbe de Lattaignant^
trans, by Charles Godfrey Leland,
A CATCH ON TOBACCO. 39
A CATCPI ON TOBACCO.
{Sung by four men smoking their Pipes.
Good, good indeed ;
The herb's good weed ;
Fill thy pipe, Will.
And I prithee, Sam, fill,
And yet sing still.
And yet sing still,
What say the learn'd ?
What say the learn'd ?
ViiafujnuSy vitafumns !
'Tis what you and I,
And he and I,
You, and he, and I,
And all of us sumtis.
But then to the learned say we again,
If life's a smoke, as they maintain ;
If life's a vapour without doubt,
When a man does die,
He should not cry,
That his glass is run, but his pipe is out.
40 A CATCH ON TOBACCO.
But whether we smoke or whether we sing,
Let us be loyal and remember the King,
Let him live, and let his foes vanish thus, thus,
thus.
Like, like a pipe, like a pipe of Spanish, thus,
thus, thus,
A pipe of Spanish !
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 41
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 —
The lawyers i' the hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.
42 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
The man whose chief glovy
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack — O !
Between ever heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a pipe 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,
CHOOSING A WIFE. 43
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 colour let me find
In her skin^ and in her viind.
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 lotv^
Send them where they ought to go;
When to study I incline.
Let her aid be such as thine ;
Such as thine the charming pow'r
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.
44 TO A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
TO A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Come, lovely tube, by friendship blest,
Belov'd and honoured 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,
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. 45
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.
June 22, 1782,
I\ry dear Friend ^
If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write ;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time,
I feel a wish, by cheerful rhyme.
To soothe my friend, and, had I pow'r,
To cheat him of an anxious hour ;
Not meaning (for, I must confess,
It were but folly to suppress)
His pleasure or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky.
And he had once (and who but he ?)
The name of setting genius free ;
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not ;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff;
46 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,
I seem no brighter in my wits
For all the radiance he emits,
Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh ! for a succedaneum, then.
To accelerate a creeping pen !
Oh ! for a ready succedaneum,
Quod caput, cerebriim, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,
Et morbo ja77i caliginoso !
'Tis here ; this oval box well fill'd
With best Tobacco finely mill'd,
Beats all Anticyra's pretences
To disengage the encumbered senses.
"Oh! nymph of Transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,
Whether reposing on the side
Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide.
Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,
'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed.
Which, whether pulverised it gain
A speedy passage to the brain.
Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. 47
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine.
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power — the pipe ;
So may no blight invest thy plains,
And no unseasonable rains ;
And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's shore ;
And thou, secure from all alarms
Of thundering guns and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide-expanded leaves have made ;
So may thy victories increase,
And fumigation never cease.
May Newton, with renew'd delights,
Perform thy odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine ;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full."
William Cowper.
48 THE PIPE TO THE SNUFF-BOX.
SAYS THE PIPE TO THE SNUFF-BOX.
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 !
THE PIPE TO THE SNUFF-BOX. 49
** 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.
Wiliiafn Cowper.
50 ELEGY ON A QUID OF TOBACCO.
ELEGY ON A QUID OF TOBACCO.
It lay before me on the close-grazed grass,
Beside my path, an old tobacco-quid :
And shall I by the mute adviser pass
Without one serious thought ? now Heaven forbid !
Perhaps some idle drunkard threw thee there —
Some husband, spendthrift of his weekly hire,
One who for wife and children takes no care,
But sits and tipples by the alehouse fire.
Ah ! luckless was the day he learnt to chew !
Embryo of ills the quid that pleased him first !
Thirsty from that unhappy quid he grew.
Then to the alehouse went to quench his thirst.
So great events from causes small arise —
The forest oak was once an acorn seed —
And many a wretch from drunkenness who dies
Owes all his evils to the Indian weed.
Let not temptation mortal e'er come nigh !
Suspect some ambush in the parsley hid ;
From the first kiss of love ye maidens fly !
Ye youths ! avoid the first tobacco quid !
ELEGY ON A QUID OF TOBACCO. 5
Perhaps I wrong thee, O thou veteran chaw !
And better thoughts my fancy should engage :
That thou wert rounded in some toothless jaw,
The joy, perhaps, of solitary age.
One who has suffered Fortune's hardest knocks,
Poor, and with none to tend on his grey hairs,
Yet has a friend in his tobacco-box,
And, while he rolls his quid, forgets his cares.
Even so it is with human happiness —
Each seeks his own according to his whim ;
One toils for wealth, one Fame alone can bless,
One asks a quid — a quid is all to him !
O, veteran chaw ! thy fibres savoury, strong.
While aught remained to chew, thy master chew'd.
Then cast thee here, when all thy juice was gone.
Emblem of selfish man's ingratitude !
O, happy man ! O, cast-off quid ! is he
Who, like as thou, has comforted the poor?
Happy his age who knows himself, like thee,
Thou didst thy duty — man can do no more.
Robert South ey.
52 SNUFF.
SNUFF.
A DELICATE pinch ! Oh, how it tingles up
The titillated nose, and fills the eyes
And breast, till in one comfortable sneeze
The full-collected pleasure bursts at last !
Most rare Columbus ! thou shalt be for this
The only Christopher in my Kalendar.
Why but for thee the uses of the Nose
Were half unknown, and its capacity
Of joy. The summer gale that from the heath,
At midnoon glowing with the golden gorse,
Bears its balsamic odour, but provokes
Not satisfies the sense ; and all the flowers
That with their unsubstantial fragrance tempt
And disappoint, bloom for so short a space,
That half the year the Nostrils would keep Lent,
But that the kind tobacconist admits
No winter in his work ; when Nature sleeps
His wheels roll on, and still administer
A plenitude of joy, a tangible smell.
What are Peru and those Golcondan mines
To thee, Virginia ? miserable realms,
The produce of inhuman toil, they send
Gold for the greedy, jewels for the vain.
I
SNUFF. 53
But thine are cojumon comforts ! — To omit
Pipe-panegyric and tobacco-praise,
Think what the general joy the snuff-box gives,
Europe, and far above Pizarro's name
Write Raleigh in thy records of renown !
Him let the school-boy bless if he behold
His master's box produced, for when he sees
The thumb and finger of Authority
Stufft up the nostrils ; when hat, head, and wig
Shake all ; when on the waistcoat black, brown dust
From the oft-reiterated pinch profuse
Profusely scatter'd, lodges in its folds.
And part on the magistral table lights.
Part on the open book, soon blown away.
Full surely soon shall then the brow severe
Relax ; and from vituperative lips
Words that of birch remind not, sounds of praise.
And jokes that f?nisi be laugh'd at, shall proceed.
Robert SoiUhey,
natneteentb Centuii^ SinoPier6»
Je suis la pipe d'un auteur ;
Ou voit d contempler ma mine
D'Abyssinienne ou de Cafrine,
Que mon maitre est un grand fximcur.
Quand il est combU de douleur
Je fume comme la chaumine
Ou se prepare la cziisine
Pour le retour die lahoureur.
J'enlace et je berce son Cime
Dans le rdseau mobile et bleu
Qui monte de ma bouche en feti,
Jilt je roule un puissant dictamc
Qui charme son coeur et gucrit
De ses fatigues son esprit.
CiiARLKS Baudelaire.
THE SMOKER'S CALENDAR. 57
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 his 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 rest
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.
58 FROM "THE ISLAND."
FROM "THE ISLAND."
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,
Born from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown
Its gentle odours over either zone,
And, pufT'd where'er winds rise or waters roll.
Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Opposed its vapour as the lightning flash'd,
And reek'd, 'midst mountain billows unabash'd,
To ^olus 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 labour or the Turkman's rest ;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides ;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand.
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand ;
* Hobbes, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, Tvas
an inveterate smoker,— even to pipes beyond computation.
FROM "THE ISLAND." 59
Divine in hookers, glorious in a pipe,
When tipp'd with amber, yellow, 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.
6o A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
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
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. 6r
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 doth show us,
That our best friends do not kn^^w 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 this deity can do,
62 A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
As the false Egyptian spell
Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
Some few vapours thou mayst raise
The weak brain may serve to amaze,
But to the reins and nobler heart
Canst not 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 j
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.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. 63
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 allj 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
64 A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
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.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
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 favours, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odours, that give life
Like glances from a neighbour's v^ifej
And still live in the by-places
And the suburbs of thy graces,
And in thy borders take delight.
An unconquer'd Canaanile.
Charles Lamb.
66 EFFUSION BY A SMOKER.
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,
J\Ty 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 vapour 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 l:)rains and breath,
EFFUSION BY A SMOKER. 67
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.
63 MY LAST CIGAR.
MY LAST CIGAR.
The mighty Thebes and Babylon the great
Imperial Rome, in turn, have bowed to fate ;
So this great world and each particular star
Must all burn out, like you, my last cigar :
A puff — a transient fire, that ends in smoke,
And all that's given to man — that bitter joke —
Youth, Hope, and Love, three whiffs of passing zest,
Then come the ashes, and the long, long rest,
Henry James Mel/er.
THE CIGAR. 69
THE CIGAR.
Some sigh for this or that ;
ISIy 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 v/ai ;
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.
70 THE CIGAR.
They tell me that Bank Stock
Is sunk much under par ;
It's all the same to me,
So I have my cigar.
Honours 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 Larj
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.
THE CIGAR. 71
Some minds arc 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.
llionias Hood.
A MANILLA SONNET.
A MANILLA SONNET.
Luscious leaf of fragrant savour,
Mild cheroot of choicest flavour,
Wafting incense to the sky,
Like the gales of Araby,
Let us press thee to our lips,
As the bee the honey sips ;
Culling as our well-earned meed,
Joys from thee — thou heavenly weed !
Ere thy burnished lip we kiss.
Let us thus enjoy the bliss,
Lit by the Promethean spark,
Kindled from the congreve dark ;
In summer-house or country villa.
There's nothing like a good Manilla !
E. L, Bianchard,
iMY CIGAR. 73
MY CIGAR.
In spite of my physician, who is, ciitre 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,
iNIy 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 ;
x\s 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 !
74 MY CIGAR.
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 effer-
vescence,
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 millionaires or magnates, or senators or scholars.
MY CIGAR. 75
I will pufif 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.
Arihur W, Gimdry.
76 MY LAST CIGAR.
MY LAST CIGAR.
'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 breath'd 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 ;
MY LAST CIGAR. -j-j
Eut still the flame crept 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 distant 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.
Jose/-h IFarren Fabens.
78 MY THREE LOVES.
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 banish all our troubles.
My pipe I nearly made my pet,
Above cigar or cigarette.
MY THREE LOVES, 79
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.
8o MY THREE LOVES.
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.
MY AFTER-DINNER CLOUD. 8i
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
82 MY AFTER-DINNER CLOUD.
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 vapour 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.
AD MINISTRAM. 83
AD MINISTRAM.
Dear Lucy, you know what my wish is, —
I hate all your Frenchified fuss :
Your silly entrees and made dishes
Were never intended for us.
No footman in lace and in ruffles
Need dangle behind my arm-chair ;
And never mind seeking for truffles,
Although they be ever so rare.
But a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,
I prithee get ready at three :
Have it smoking, and tender, and juicy,
And what better meat can there be ?
And when it has feasted the master,
'Twill amply suffice for the maid ;
Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster,
And tipple my ale in the shade.
William Makepeace Thackeray.
84 AN ODE OF THANKS.
AN ODE OF THANKS FOR CERTAIN CIGARS.
To Charles Elioi 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 !
AN ODE OF THANKS. 85
lie 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
86 AN ODE OF THANKS.
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.
AN ODE OF THANKS. 87
My gratitude feds 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, —
A 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 ^hz.ccy 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.]
88 TO C. F. BRADFORD.
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 call 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,
TO C. F. BRADFORD. 89
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 vapours 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 colour 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 !
90 TO C. F. BRADFORD.
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 favourite pipe to me.
James Russell Lowell.
A WINTER EVENING HYMN. 91
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 fiU'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.
92 SMOKE AND CHESS.
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
FHnched from a knight's determined bound,
And in sullen majesty left the ground,
I
SMOKE AND CHESS. 93
Reeling back ; and it came to pass,
That, waiting to mutter no funeral mass,
A bishop had dealt him the cotip 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 honour 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. Dtiffield.
94 M^CENAS BIDS HIS FRIEND.
Mi^CENAS 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 hit or coffee black,
With Kirsch or Kiimmel 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.
AT HOME. 95
AT HOME.
Old fireside, I'm thine to-night,
Let snapping logs burn clear and bright ;
Old smoking jacket, how I bless
This sweet release from evening dress.
My faithful brier, with amber stem,
Lead me to fancy's boundless realm ;
No need to shun thee, lest perchance
She'll note thy fragrance in the dance.
My warm Scotch friend, the kettle sings,
To mitigate thy fiery stings;
Now, Ovid, tell me tales of Rome —
No cards are out for this "at home."
96 PICTURES IN SMOKE.
PICTURES IN SMOKE.
In a rapt, dreamy quietude I sit
Leisurely puffing clouds from my cigar,
And down the sunbeams, with a noiseless tread,
A throng of elves come tripping from afar.
Half consciously the fairies I invoke
To paint me pictures in the tinted smoke.
Old scenes of boyhood's careless fun and sport ;
Faces of schoolmates, fresh and young and fair ;
Grim pedagogues with frowning front and brow ;
Long shining curls and braids of silken hair j
White hands, red smarting 'neath the ferrule's stroke
Or clasped in browner ones— pictured in smoke.
Familiar fireside scenes ; the light of home ;
The good-night kiss and trudging off to bed;
The petty quarrels and the making up ;
The mother's soft hand resting on the head ;
The shadowy moonlight on a hillside oak ;
Quaint boyhood fancies — radiant in the smoke.
PICTURES IN SMOKE. 97
The first coquetting with the first boy love ;
The awkward gallantry of unripe years ;
The simple gifts ; the long walks after school ;
The slights that brought a rush of angry tears ;
The feuds and duels that such slights provoke —
How vividly they're painted in the smoke !
The first time leaving home ; the last good-bye ;
The bitter pang of loneliness and pain ;
New cares and trials, real life begun ;
The first sore yearning to be young again,
When worn and weary 'neath toil's cumbrous yoke —
Hov/ true to life these pictures are in smoke !
I pray you, my good fairies, leave me now ;
You've brought the past to me with memories glad
The pictures vanish, but the trace is left —
The boy was happy but the man is sad.
No longer young and fond ! Time's ravens croak,
And youth has vanished with the fragrant smoke.
How life is like this vapour ! Calm-eyed Hope
In fairy guise paints it with pictures rare,
And while we gaze and stretch out eager hands,
Behold the phantoms vanish in the air !
Urged by a fate no pleading can revoke,
\Ye grow old watching pictures in the smoke.
T, II. ElHo!.
7
98 A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
The wind is loud this bleak December night,
And moans, like one forlorn, at door and pane ;
But here within my chamber warm and bright,
All household blessings reign.
And as I sit and smoke, my eager soul
Somewhat at times from out the Past will win.
Whilst the light cloud wreathes upwards from the
bowl,
That glows so red within.
And of the Protean shapes that curling rise,
Fancy, godlike, so moulds and fashions each,
That dead hands live again, and kindly eyes,
And even dear human speech.
Often in this dim world two boys I see.
Of ruddy cheek, and open careless brow ;
And one am I, my fond heart whispers me,
And one, dear Tom, art thou.
With many a rosy tint the picture glows, —
Wild sport avenging school's hard tyranny, —
Bright holidays, with games and fairy shows,
And shouts of frolic glee ;
A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 99
Till all melts into air. Upon my ears
Sweet bells sound softly through the summer hours,
And Oxford, fairest city, slow uprears
Her glittering spires and towers :
And here by Isis' banks, and Cherwell's stream,
And haunted Cumnor, and the hundred ways
Where thou and I, dear friend, were wont to dream,
My yearning spirit strays.
And now 'neath chestnut avenues we tread.
Now by gray arch and lichen-cover'd wall ;
Or on tranc'd ear, in pillar'd fanes, the dread.
Deep organ-thunderings fall.
And as the witching incense round me climbs,
I feel those wealthy summer eves once more,
When from full hearts we read our venturous rhymes,
Or favourite poet-lore,
And, pausing, saw the still night drawing on.
And o'er the turret-roofs, serene and clear
Within their ordered spaces, one by one,
The solemn stars appear.
So in this odorous cloud full oft I see
Sweet forms of tender beauty ; and a tone
Steals through the echoing halls of Memory,
That these are all my own.
DO A PIPE OF TOBACCO.
Yea, — though, dear Tom, Death's passionless cold
hand
Hath thrust her sable cloud 'tween thee and me,
And thou art lying in an alien land,
Beyond the Atlantic sea.
GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE. loi
GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE.
Good pipe, old friend, old black and coloured 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 humour 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.
I02 GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE.
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 nie 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 1
GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE. 103
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.
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.
I04 GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE.
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 !
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,
GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE. 105
I, with my lamp and books, as is my wonl,
Will give thee of the choicest of all climes, —
Black Cavendish, full-flavoured, full of juice,
Pale Turkish, famed through all the Osman times.
Dark Latakia, Syrian, Persia's pride,
And sweet Virginian, sweeter than them all I
Oh, rich bouquet of plants, fit for a bride
Who, blushing, waits the happy bridegroom's call I
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.
io6 GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE.
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 j
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.
GEORDIE TO HIS TOBACCO-PIPE. 107
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).
io8 THE LAST PIPE.
THE LAST PIPE.
When head is sick and brain dolh 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 labour-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.
THE LAST PIPE. 109
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 'nealh 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."
/. S,
no THOUGHTS OVER A PICTURE.
THOUGHTS OVER A PICTURE* AND
A PIPE THROWN INTO VERSE.
^' Duki meditatur avena."
Well have you limned, Mr. Lawless,
This young disciple of Raleigh's.
Sure 'tis the Cock where he sits,
Listening the jests of the wits,
With that half-smile on his face,
Seated apart in the place, —
Head on one side, eyes askance,
Noting with curious glance
Johnson the burly and big,
Wearing that seedy old wig,
Jesting at little Piazzi,
Tilting at coxcombly Bozzy.
Or is it Goldsmith he spies.
Laughing — with tears in his eyes.
And in vest-pocket the guinea
He'll give you for asking, the ninny.
How on poor Noll they all doat,
Drest in that plum-coloured coat !
Or is he thinking on Savage,
How want has worked its wild ravage,
Or how to Garrick's keen face
Genius lends fire blent with grace ?
* r>y M. J. Lawless.
THOUGHTS OVER A PICTURE, in
Or by a casement flung ope
Sits he, to smoke or to tope,
Lazily casting an eye
Over the stream flowing by, —
Merchant, thief, beggar, and beau
Passing — one ne'er-ending show ?
He rests — contented in soul,
While the blue smoke from the bowl,
Wavering up through the air.
Perfume diffuses so rare !
Shall I to tell you pretend
What are the thoughts of our friend,
Taking his pipe and his dram,
Water-dilute of Schiedam ?
These are his fancies, I'm thinking,
As he sits smoking and drinking.
Old Ralph Ransome sailed the sea —
Sailed the whole vast ocean through —
And returning brought to me
These rare cakes of Honeydew.
Blessings on old Raleigh's head —
Though upon the block it fell—
For the knowledge he first spread
Of the herb I love so well !
'Tis a talisman defies
All that care and want can do.
There are few things that I prize
Like Ralph Ransome's Honeydew !
112 THOUGHTS OVER A PICTURE.
Tell me not of lotos-plants —
How the lotos-eaters lay
Lazily in shady haunts
Dreaming all their time away !
There's a drowsier charm in this
Than in lotos ; — if, indeed,
That same plant aught other is
Than the soothing Indian weed :—
Were it not, in truth then if
I were of Ulysses' crew,
I'd far rather have a whiff
Of Ralph Ransome's Honeydew !
Peace to old Ralph Ransome's bones
Wheresoever they are lain,
In some island of the zones,
In the distant Spanish main.
This Nepenthe which he brought.
Only careful memories ends —
Does not drown one kindly thought
Of my rarest of old friends.
As I muse thus, lapt in bliss,
Upwards floats the vapour bhie —
The apotheosis this
Of Ralph Ransome's Iloneydew I
I
OLD PIPE OF MINE.
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 !
114 OLD PIPE OF MINE.
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 !
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,
OLD PIPE OF MINE. 115
And then to bed. The stars are low ;
Yon sickly moon has ceased to shine ;
So here she goes, and off we go
To Sluraberland, old pipe of mine !
JohiiJ. Conn ley.
Ii6 THOSE ASHES.
THOSE ASHES.
Up to the frescoed ceiling
The smoke of my cigarette
In a sinuous spray is reeHng,
Forming flower and minaret.
V/hat 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 ! "
THE SMOKE TRAVELLER. 117
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.
liS THE SMOKE TRAVELLER.
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, —
Kuts 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,
THE SMOKE TRAVELLER. 119
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 v/eed my fancy warms.
Life's review in smoke goes past, —
Fickle fortune, stubborn fate,
Right discovered all too late,
120 THE SMOKE TRAVELLER.
Beings loved and gone before,
Beings loved but friends no more,
Self-reproach and futile sighs,
Vanity in birth that dies, iBi
Longing, heart-break, adoration, — ™
Nothing sure in expectation
Save ash-receiver at the last.
IrvUig Browne.
MY MEERSCHAUMS. 121
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 flavour —
I light it oft for her sweet sake
Who gave it, with her girlish favour.
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.
122 MY MEERSCHAUMS.
This nargilch, whose hue betrays
Perique from soft Louisiana,
In Egypt once beguiled the days
Of Tewfik's dreamy-eyed Sultana.
Speaking of colour, — 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.
MY MEERSCHAUMS.
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 !
Char CCS 1<\ Lumtnis.
124 MY PIPE AND I.
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 faithfiil pipe and I
Have wooed nnd 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.
MY PIPE AND I. 12;
And nights and days, with rosy dreams
Teem 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 !
Whate'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 move ;
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.
126 A BACHELOR'S VIEWS.
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 " ?
A BACHELOR'S VIEWS. 127
So let us drink
To her, — but think
Of him who has to keep her;
And salts a wife
Let's spend our life
In bachelordom, — it's cheaper.
Tom ILxlJ.
128 ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE.
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 Teufelsdrockh 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 ?
ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE. 129
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;
lie were indeed a subtle necromancer,
Could read their records in its cloudy stains.
9
I30 ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE.
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 Ef.stern sea.
And, treasured by some 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 labour to re-word the hackneyed moral
'Os ^ijWiov yever,, 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.
THE LOST LOTUS. 131
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.
132 LATAKIy\.
LATAKIA.
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 av/ay.
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.
LATAKIA. 133
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 !
Thomas Bailey A id rich.
134 CHIBOUQUE.
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.
PATRIOTIC SMOKER'S LAMENT. 135
THE TATRIGTIC 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,
'Tvvas 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,
36 PATRIOTIC SMOKERS LAMENT.
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-favour,
For the plant that's native grown
Has a patriotic flavour
Too exclusively our own.
O my country, could your smoker
Boast your "shag," or even "twist,"
Every man were mediocre
Save the blest tobacconist 1
PATRIOTIC SMOKER'S LAMENT. 137
He will point immortal morals,
Make all common praises mute,
Who shall win our grateful laurels
With a national cheroot.
The St. Jameses Cazctle.
138 "KEATS TOOK SNUFF.
"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 whisky 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."
"KEATS TOOK SNUFF." 139
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 Gio'jc.
I40 HOW IT ONCE V/AS.
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 bHnds,
HOW IT ONCE WAS. 141
Eronght 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 Sim.
[42 THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER.
THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER.
{From the " Trumpeter of Sackingen.^')
*' But, O Father, why for ever
Must you smoke that evil-smelling.
Hurtful, poisonous tobacco ?
I am frightened when you sit there
Deep in rolling clouds enveloped.
As in morning mists Mont Eggberg.
And I grieve me for the golden
Picture-frames that hang above us,
And the whiteness of the curtains.
Hear you not their low lamenting.
That the smoke from out your clay-pipe
Makes them pale, and grey, and tarnished ?
Doubtless 'tis a wondrous country.
Yon America, discovered
Erstwhile by the gallant Spaniard.
And I, too, rejoice at thought of
Paroquets all gaily painted.
And of strings of rosy coral.
Through my dreams come floating, sometimes,
Lofty palm woods, silent bowers,
Cocoa-nuts and mighty flowers.
And wild monkeys, full of mischief.
THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER. 143
Yet I almost wish it rested
Undiscovered in the ocean,
All because of that tobacco,
Which has come to us from thither.
Sooth, a man I gladly pardon
Though he oft, with scant occasion,
Draw the red wine from the barrel ;
Even might, if need were pressing.
With a red nose reconcile me.
Never with tobacco smoking."
Smilingly the Baron heard her,
Smilingly blew fresh clouds about him
From his clay-pipe, as he answered :
*' Dear, my child, you women daily
Prate of many things full lightly
Which surpass your understanding.
True, a soldier oft possesses
Many rough, unpolished habits
For withdrawing-rooms unfitted.
But my child, above all others,
Should not gibe, methinks, at smoking,
Since through that I won her mother.
And because old battle-stories
Through my head to-night are buzzing,
Sit thee down ; instead of reading,
I myself will tell thee somewhat
Of the weed which thou misprizest,
Somewhat of thy sainted mother."
144 THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER.
Wondering Margaretha scanned him,
With her eyes of deepest azure,
Fetched her tapestry and needle
And her wools of motley colours,
By the arm-chair of her father
Placed a foot-stool, and right graceful
Set her by him. In the forest
Springs the wild rose, young and lovely.
Thus beside the gnarled oak-tree.
With a steady draught the Baron
Drained his goblet, and continued :
" It was in the evil war-time.
Once, with some few German troopers,
Into Alsace I made inroad.
Hans von Weerth was then our Colonel.
Swedes and French were camped by Breisach,
And with many a deed of daring
Soon we made their camp re-echo.
But the fleetest hare may perish.
One black day they loosed upon us
All their yelping pack — confound them !
And, with bleeding gashes covered.
We were forced to yield our rapiers.
So, as prisoners, were we carried
By the Frenchmen to fair Paris,
To the prison of Vincennes.
" ' Zounds ! ' So spake our gallant Colonel,
Hans von Weerth, ' Sure, 'twere more lively
THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER. 145
With a naked sword to gallop
Leading on a storming-party,
Than in Vincennes here to moulder,
Tilting with the heavy moments.
'Gainst such foes no weapon helps us,
Wine and dice alike are powerless,
Only smoking — that I've tested
In the Promised Land of Boredom,
'Mong the Mynheers. Let us try it ;
Here, too, it may do good service.'
** So the Governor procured us
From a Netherlandish merchant
Straight a barrel of tobacco.
And of burnt clay-pipes abundance.
Soon from all the German captives
There arose a monstrous smoking.
Puffing, fuming, cloud-creating.
Such as erst in polished Paris
Never mortal eye had witnessed.
All amazed our warders saw it.
To the King the news was carried.
And he came himself in splendour
To behold the cloudy marvel.
** Soon the whole of Paris gossiped
Of the savage bears of Germans
And of their extraordinary,
Quite unheard-of trick of smoking.
10
146 THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER.
Up drove coaches ; down sprang pages ;
Cav^aliers and stately ladies
Crowded to our narrow guard-room.
And she, too, came; she, the haughty
Leanor Montfort du Plessys.
Still to-day, methinks, I see her
On the earth-floor coyly stepping,
Hear her train of satin rustle.
And my heart beat as aforetime
In the roaring tide of battle,
And the smoke from out my clay-pipe
Rose as from a row of cannons.
And 'twas well. Upon the cloudlet
Which I blew aloft so stoutly,
Cupid sat and shot his arrows,
And his aim was sure and steady.
Wonder shortly changed to interest,
Interest changed to something dearer.
And she found the German bruin
Nobler, in his honest roughness,
Than the gilded Paris lions.
" When our prison-gates were opened,
And the joyous news of freedom
Brought us by the welcome herald.
Then I first became a captive,
Bound in softest silken traces,
Hopeless of release. Our marriage
And the hapi3y homeward journey
Did but draw them closer, closer.
THE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTER. 147
Thinking on it all, the tear-drops
Fall upon my grey moustachios.
What remains of all my glory ?
Her sweet memory, ever with me ;
The black cat, old Hiddigeigei ;
And my Leanor's sweet image,
Thou, my child, — God keep thee ever ! "
Thus he spake and knocked the ashes
From his pipe, and meditative
Stroked the cat, old Hiddigeigei.
But, half-laughingly, his daughter
Fell upon her knees before him.
Saying : " Father, of your goodness,
Grant me general absolution.
Mortal syllable shall never
O'er my lips get leave to wander,
Henceforth, in dispraise of smoking."
J. V. ZW71 Scheffel,
trans, by Jessie Beck and Louise Loj'imer.
TOBACCO ET BACCHO.
TOBACCO ET BACCHO.
To W. G. H.
There is a book of Latin epigrams
Written by Herr Winstruphius — a Dane —
And one among them rather neatly turns
On Baccho et Tobacco — 'twas the first
In which the venerable pun was made,
And this is how he puts it : he declares
That wine, or Bacchus, acts with wondrous power
Upon the mind of man, and most of us
Can testify by sound experience
That here the bard is right — wine by the way
Embraces ale or brandy, rum or gin ;
Just as when speaking of humanity
We always say in general human terms
That Man embraces Woman — to return
To our Winstruphius — he next declares
That good tobacco also is in fact
A very potent thing, and that the two
Are too — too tonic to be taken in
By combination or in company,
As by the Germans it is ever done.
All this I leave to others to decide,
But it suggests to me that in one form
TOBACCO ET BACCHO. 149
Tobacco and intoxicating drinks
Can unto great advantage be combined,
As I found out in years long passed away,
When good Havanas — yea, the very best.
Cost just three halfpence each — and they were good ;
You could not get one now for a doubloon
With such aroma, naught so exquisite
Now burns on earth — no wonder that erewhile
The Indians burnt it just to please their gods !
Well, take tobacco — any kind you like —
And keep it in a jar of stone or glass ;
(If in a bag, a bladder makes the best ;)
And sprinkle it with old Jamaica rum ;
Note that the rum should be extremely good,
For much depends on it, then you will find
It gives peculiar fragrance to the leaf
Like that of the Havanas which we had
All in the olden time, Probatum est I
Charles Godfrey Leland,
ISO BREITMANN'S RAUCHLIED.
BREITMANN'S RAUCHLIED.
[Note by Herr Fritz Schwackenhammer, Secre-
tary OF Herr Coptain Breitmann, Uhlan
Free Lancers.]
Vonce oopon a dimes I vas find in a Frantsch shendleman's
libriothek, or book-room, a liddle Latin book, "de Braise of
Tobacco," by de crate Thorius. Dis I put indo mine bocket,
und in de efenin I vas read it by de bivouack camp-fire to
Coptain Breitmann, und struck before him dat he was ought to
dranslate id into de Breitmann language. He vas only reply
to dis mit a drementous oudpurst of silence, und ven dis vas
ofer he kep so shdill ash afery dinks, und smoke mit himself
apout tree hours, und denn say nodings to nopodies. Boot de
nexter morgen he press into main hand dis vollowin boem, vitch
is urspringly originell, alone mit himself gedichtered mit de
outname of de last verse in Latin, vitch sounds goot deal ash if
id ver gesholden from Gualterus de INIapes or some of dem
vellers. Vhen I ashk der Herr Coptain Breitmann, " How pout
dis?" he rebly mit massive und Olympic shkorn of shiant
gondempt, dad id vas a shdupendous parodie, und dat ven a
tarn liddle rifer rooned indo de ocean it vas all become ocean in
secula seculorum.
Of all de dings dat inordal man,
Ish fabrikate for gelt,
Of all de goots dat sailen ships
Ish carry troo de welt,
BREITMANN'S RAUCHLIED.
Peneat de Frantsche tri-colour,
De English Union Shack,
Or Vankeelandish stripes und stars,
De pest ish good Taback.
Vhen heavenly smoke is round mein nose.
I veels all Gott-resigned :
Mit goot cigars in lofely rows,
No care ish on my mind.
Id drills mein heart to finger dem
Vhatefer pe deir brand —
Vhere'er I finds some smoke-work — dcic
Ish Piper's Vaterland.
Vot sort of vellers can dey be,
I dinks dir hets ish crack !
Who shbeaks me of de pad cigars
Und good for nix Taback ?
Dere's some Taback more betterer
As oder can pe found.
Boot pad Taback I nefer saw
On all Gott's garten ground.
Vot say der crate Winstruphius ?
Der Danish bard sooblime :
Dat "Bacchus und Tobaccus oft
Trown oud, dry oop, your time.'
152 BREITMANN'S RAUCHLIED.
If rollin vapour ofer het,
De face of heafen shrouds,
Vhy shouldt not mordal life trife on,
In wild Tobacco clouds ?
Ich lieb' den Wein, ich lieb' das Bier
Das ist ganz wohl bekannt.
I trinks mein liddle Branntewein,
Vhen mornings oop I stand ;
Boot Wein I'd lose und Bier resign,
Ja — Branntewein I'd lack,
Ere in dis world I'd smokeless go,
Mitout mein rauch Taback.
Si tyrannus jubeat
" Vinum dato ! " — darem.
"Non amato virgineni ! "
Hegre non amarem,
" Meerschaum da, seu morere ! "
Pertinax negarem,
" Frange meerschaum — abjice ! "
Fumans expirarem.
Charles Godfrey Leland.
Ij
INSCRIPTIONS FOR JARS. 153
INSCRIPTIONS FOR TOBACCO JARS.
Three hundred year ago or soe,
Ane worthye knight and gentleman
Did bring mee here, to charm and cheer
Ye physical and mental man.
God rest his soul, who filled ye bowl,
And may our blessings find him ;
That hee not miss some share of bliss,
Who left soe much behind him !
— Bernard Barker.
Do you recall the wondrous brazen vase,
Fish'd up long since in an Arabian night,
Whence rose a thick columnar smoke, that was
A fearful Dginn of more than mortal might ?
I am akin to it. — Within my womb,
Hid in the fragrant stores therein that be,
There dwells a kindly genius, that from fume,
Becomes to man embodied — Reverie !
Keep me at hand ; and as my fumes arise.
You'll find d.jar the gates of Paradise.
154 ''MY LADY NICOTINE.'
"MY LADY NICOTINE" VINDICATED.
[A young man of Tr^meaux, who had been dumb twenty-three
years, was suddenly restored to speech by the frenzy of trying
to communicate his desire for a smoke.]
Go to, ye leathers of the fragrant weed,
Who us poor smokers hamper, harass, harry !
Go to ! go to ! and then go, too, and read
The famed "Arcadia's" praise, as penned by Barrie.
Let prejudice be banned, and necks grown stiff
Relaxed ! . . . Go, buy an ounce, and try a whiff !
We have not heretofore, we smokers, dared
(Though backed by gentle Elia, Bulwer, Byron !)
To drop this hint. But we are now prepared
To swear your hearts are steel, your hides are iron.
If ye — incongruous dogs ! — (still bearing arms
'Gainst Lady Nicotine) — deny her charms,
When ye have heard how fervent love for her
Can on the dumb man's lips the boon of speech confer !
William Edmondson.
"SCORN NOT." 155
SCORN NOT THE MEERSCHAUM.'
Scorn not the meerschaum. Housewives, you have
croaked
In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed
Did Milton, now and then, consume the weed ;
The poet Tennyson hath oft evoked
The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked
And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood ;
Hawthorne with this hath cheered his solitude;
A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;
Full oft hath Aldrich, Stoddard, Taylor, Cranch,
And many more whose verses float about,
Puffed the Virginian or Havanna leaf;
And when the poet's or the artist's branch,
Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout
Consolatory whiffs — alas, too brief !
1
156 A BALLADE OF TOBACCO.
A 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 BALLADE OF TOBACCO. 157
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.
ENVOY.
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.
58 ODE TO MY PIPE.
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.
ODE TO MY PIPE. 159
A burly cloud
Doth now thy outward beauties shroud ;
And now a film doth upward creep,
Cuddlino; 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 WynUr,
[6o FIDUS ACHATES.
FIDUS ACHATES.
Where is my trusty old clay,
The pipe I have puffed for years ?
Broken and passed away !
Puffed it when laughing and gay,
Puffed it when plunged in tears,
Where is my trusty old clay?
My solace by night and by day,
Like magic it scattered my fears —
Broken and passed away !
'Twas black as the jettiest jay,
'Twas soft as the murmur of meres —
Where is my trusty old clay?
This is all that my tongue can say,
This is all that my sad soul hears —
Broken and passed away !
Here's the end of all pleasure and play,
Man's epitaph here appears :
Where is my trusty old clay ?
Broken and passed away !
IF. A. Mackenzie.
BALLADE OF THE BEST PIPE. i6i
A BALLADE OF THE BEST PIPE.
I HEAR you fervently extol
The virtues of your ancient clay,
As black as any piece of coal.
To me it smells of rank decay
And bones of people passed away, —
A smell I never could admire.
With all respect to you I say.
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
Poor Jones, whose judgment as a whole
Is faultless, has been led astray
To nurse a costly meerschaum bowl.
Well, let him nurse it as he may,
I hardly think he'll find it pay.
Before the colour gets much higher,
He'll drop it on the grate some day.
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
The heathen Turk of Istamboul,
In Oriental turban gay,
Delights his unregenerate soul
With hookahs, bubbling in a way
i62 BALLADE OF THE BEST PIPE.
To fill a Christian with dismay,
And wake the old Crusading fire.
May no such pipe be mine I pray !
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
Clay, meerschaum, hookah, what are they
That I should view them with desire ?
I'll sing, till all my hair is grey.
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
K. F. Murray,
A PIPE TO SMOKE."
"A PIPE TO SMOKE."
A Pipe to smoke is all I crave,
With it for comrade I can brave
The winter weather of mischance,
The icy grip of circumstance,
Forget that I am Fortune's slave.
I pity him that feels its suave
And subtle charm, and, luckless knave,
Finds not the source of all romance —
A Pipe to smoke.
And when in days to come I wave
Farewell to life and all it gave,
Be this my latest utterance.
Grant me, ye Gods, and so enhance
The distant land beyond the grave,
A Pipe to smoke.
I^K G. H.
I64 MY COMFORTER.
MY COMFORTER.
How weary were this world uncheered by thee !
Dear solace of my life, my love, my own !
To dwell with thee Fd fling away a throne,
For, if without thy presence, it would be
Naught but a place of doom and misery.
Having known thee, I cannot live alone ;
And rudest, darkest cave of unhewn stone
Were brightest home, if thou wert there with me.
The fading glories of Fame's storied urns
Shine not for me ! Thou art the archetype
Of earth's best joy — that flies, but aye returns !
Dwelling on thy sweet mouth, so rich and ripe,
When lip to lip the rapturous incense burns,
I feel thou art my own — my love — 7ny pipe I
LNXONSOLABLE. 165
INCONSOLABLE.
**Why, tell me why that dauntless breast
Is heaving to and fro ?
I tell you, Charles, I cannot rest,
Without you let me know !
It's worse than useless to conceal
The anguish of my mind ;
You little know how sad I feel —
You'd never be unkind ! "
•* Nay, ask me not ! I dare not tell
The secret of my grief ;
And yet, perhaps, 'twould be as well.
And furnish some relief.
Then listen, dear, while thou art told —
In vain my tears you'll wipe:
The omnibus — I lost my hold.
And — smashed my meerschaum pipe !
i66 POLYCRATES.
POLYCRATES ON WATERLOO BRIDGE.
Let no mortals dare to be
Happier in their lives than we :
Thus the jealous gods decree.
This decree was never heard,
Never by their lips averred,
Yet on high stands registered.
I have read it, and I fear
All the gods above, my Dear,
All must envy us two here.
Let us then propitiate
These proud satraps of sole Fate ;
Our hearts' wealth is all too great.
Say what rich and cherished thing
Can I to the river fling
As a solemn offering ?
O beloved Meerschaum Pipe,
Whose pink bloom would soon be ripe,
Must thou be the chosen type ?
POLYCRATES. l6?
Cloud-compeller ! Foam o' the Sea,
Whence rose Venus fair and free
On some poet's reverie !
In the sumptuous silken-lined
Case where thou hast lain enshrined
Thou must now a coffin find !
And to drag thee surely down,
Lo ! I tie my last half-crown :
We shall have to walk through town.
Penny toll is paid, and thus
All the bridge is free to us ;
But no cab, nor even a 'bus !
Far I fling thee through the gloom ;
Sink into thy watery tomb,
O thou consecrate to Doom !
May no sharp police, while they track
Spoils thrown after some great "crack,
Ever, ever bring thee back !
No mudlarkers, who explore
F>ery ebb the filthy floor,
Bring thee to the day once more !
168 POLYCRATES.
No sleek cook — I spare the wish ;
Dead dogs, cats, and such-like fish,
Surely are not yet a dish ? . , .
Gods ! the dearest, as I wis,
Of my treasures offered is ;
Pardon us our heavenly bliss !
What voice murmurs full of spleen ?
Not that Pipe^ hut — Ssss ! how mean
All the gods have ever been !
James Thomson.
SMOKE. 169
SMOKE :
A POST-PRANDIAL POEM.
When you're weary, night or day,
Smoke a cheery yard of clay I
When I'm smoking, jesting, joking,
There is no king half so gay.
Lying lazy, far from crowds,
Weaving hazy mental shrouds ;
Watching furling smoke up whirling
Softly curling to the clouds.
Minds are lifted from mere mirth ;
Thoughts then sifted have more worth.
I am thinking, as the shrinking
Sunset, sinking, fires the earth.
Thoughts that sages may have had,
In their pages, grave and glad :
Thoughts thus seething, like smoke wreathin
Sadness breathing, make me sad.
I70 SMOKE.
Cigar ended — twilight broke —
Night descended — thus I spoke ;
All that's jolly, wisdom, folly,
Melancholy, end in smoke.
Brandtr Matthews.
ON THE TRAMP. 171
ON THE TRAMP.
Kicking my heels on a rickety gate,
Here in the midst of the meads sit I ;
Smoking a pipe of an ancient date,
As utterly heedless of time and fate
As the veriest tramp beneath the sky.
There, to the front, lies the open main,
Dimpled with billows that rise and fall;
And here runs my path up a country lane,
With a rustic cot and a boorish swain.
That nothing could tempt from his swinish thrall.
Smother'd from head to foot in dust.
Onward I trudge, with a lightsome heart ;
Only too glad to be free from the lust
Of the terrible city and all its trust,
And revel in nature in place of art !
What care I for the town and its fuss,
As onward I tramp 'midst the open ripe ?
What are its pleasures compared with a rus?
What, indeed ! but an incubus —
Alone supportable 'neath a pipe 1
172 WHAT I LIKE.
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.
A SMOKER'S COMPLAINT. 17;
A SMOKER'S COMPLAINT.
Though above the sun is shining,
And the birds sing in the trees,
While the clouds with silvery lining
Scud before a pleasant breeze.
Though on every side are flowers,
Bright with variegated hues.
Watered by the summer showers,
And the early morning dews.
Though kind Nature spreads her beauties
With rich bounty 'neath my eyes.
Though I'm free from worldly duties,
Yet I utter frequent sighs.
Why then am I not enjoying
All these beauties as I roam ?
True, the cause is most annoying,
For I've left vay pipe at home !
174 SONG OF THE SMOKE WREATHS.
SONG OF THE SMOKE WREATHS.
Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
Not like mists that mask the sea,
Not like vapours 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 w-j
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.
SONG OF THE SMOKE WREATHS. 175
Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
Not like mists that mask the sea,
Not like vapours round the fountains —
Soft and clear and warm are we.
176 SPARKLING AND BRIGHT.
SPARKLING AND BRIGHT.
Floating away like the fountain's spray,
Or the snow-white plume of a maiden,
The smoke-wreaths rise to the star-lit skies,
With blissful fragrance laden.
Then smoke away till the golden ray
Lights up the dawn of the morrow;
For a burning 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 beams bright.
And his dreams are all of glory.
By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire,
And infant arms surround him ;
And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall.
While the smoke-curls float around him.
SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. 177
The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain
'Neath their arbour 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.
178 WHEN A SMOKIN'-CAR IS 'TACHED.
WHEN A SMOKIN'-CAR IS 'TACHED.
Sometimes when I'm on the way
Into town on market-day,
'T hurts like sixty fer to see
Folks 'at's better dressed than me
Scrouge up tighter when I sit
Down beside 'em — 's if I bit.
But my heart don't get so scratched
When a smokin'-car is 'tached.
When a smokin'-car is 'tached
Then's the time yer comfort's catched,
When you give yer pipe a poke
And lay back and watch the smoke
Till it makes yer old eyes itch,
While you're dreamin' you was rich.
Folks don't see yer coat is patched,
When a smokin'-car is 'tached.
When a smokin'-car is 'tached
Then's the time yer dreams are snatched,
Then you're rid of Jen's old marm,
Then the mortgage 's ofif the farm,
WHEN A SMOKIN'-CAR IS TACHED. 179
Then the old peach-orchard pays —
I vum I could spend whole days
Countin' chickens 'fore they're hatched
When the smokin' car is 'tached.
6". Walter Norris.
i8o THE PIPE YOU MAKE YOURSELF.
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 for marbles, chalk, or
pelf,
Ain't ekal to th' 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—
'Twill 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.
THE PIl^E YOU .MAKE YOURSELF. iSi
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 ih' flavor of th' pipe you make yourself.
Henry E. Broivn.
i82 INGIN SUMMER.
INGIN SUMMER.
[From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1SS9, by Harper
& Brothers.]
Jest about the time when P'all
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.
INGIN SUMMER.
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 Brodhcad.
iS4 LOST ON THE PERRAN SANDS.
LOST ON THE PERRAN SANDS.
He paced with me the Cornish strand
As the night fell, and the white foam
Like phosphor fringed the belt of sand,
But scarce a star in all Heaven's dome
Could pierce the sea-mist, and each cave
Yawn'd like an empty ocean grave.
But in one antre deep and vast,
Scoop'd from the granite by the sea,
The Arthurian's pipe a halo cast
Which lent a saintly dignity
To his high brow and flowing locks.
Like genius gleaming 'mong the rocks.
Morn came — again we paced the shore.
The Atlantic surges reach'd our feet,
And did as lions bound and roar.
Then back to their green lairs retreat ;
Flouting us in their high disdain
With tail instead of bristling mane.
Then torches in the cavern flash'd.
Kindled by friends, and we beheld
The vaulted depths where lately crash'd
The boulders by the waves impell'd ;
LOST ON THE PERRAN SANDS. 185
And once again the black dudeen
Diffused its fragrance and its sheen.
We sallied forth — the pipe was lost !
But how I never yet could learn;
They say 'twas like a limpet toss'd,
Which some not slow were to discern ;
And then, to save it, man and maid
Did to their knees and higher wade.
'Twas saved — who got it? One slim girl,
Whose limbs would Thetis' form have graced,
Saw it among the cockles whirl.
And, while old Neptune clasp'd her waist,
She seized, and with white hand held up
The clay as 'twere a diver's cup.
Ocean hath yielded no such gem.
But never more the minstrel's soul
Inhaled fine thoughts through that short stem,
Or comfort quaff'd from that black bowl ;
Whether the lady tried the effect
Only the envious would suspect.
Henry Sewell Stokes.
i86 THE QUIET PIPE.
THE QUIET PIPE.
Who would not praise the quiet pipe,
To peaceful thought devoted ?
Who would not live to years full ripe,
By peaceful thought promoted ?
Why should one heed, if people say
That smoking is injurious —
Who merely point to those whose way
Of smoking is so furious ?
Then let us sing the quiet pipe
To peaceful thought devoted;
Who would not live to years full ripe,
By peaceful thought promoted ?
Why should we fear the weed's dispraise,
Whose love was never cruel ;
Whose cue of passion none could raise
Though lago found the fuel ;
Who, to ourselves and others kind,
Avoided love's extremes;
And in soft curling smoke could find
The salt of gentler themes ?
Daniel 6". Porter.
THE PIPE CRITIC. 1S7
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 colour let me find.
And blue like smoke her eyes ;
A healthy store her mind
As that vv^hich in thee lies, —
An evanescent draught, 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.
[88 THE PIPE CRITIC.
And may she hide in smoke,
As you, my friend, have done,
The faiUngs 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 !
Waller Litlkjield.
A VALENTINE. 189
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 shalt be my Valentine.
I90 AN EPITAPH
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, any sunny skies. 4.
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
A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. 191
A WOMAN'S LAST WORD.
A SLAVE is each man to his pipe,
Contented only when he's smoking ;
Would you believe ? — the other day
I heard a man say without joking,
And to his best of lasses, too !
(A very ungallant age this is ! )
•' Sooner than I'd forego my pipe
I could, my dear, forego your kisses.
192 MY CIGARETTE.
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 WARNING. 193
A WARNING.
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.
194 A WARNING.
I love lier 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
All 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 odour 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 odour 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.
BOUQUET DE CIGARE. 195
BOUQUET DE CIGARE.
*' My favourite perfume," dear Jennie ?
Had you asked me but one hour ago,
I am sure I'd have lazily answered,
" My darling, I really don't know."
For I've flirted with many a fragrance,
And never been constant to one,
But welcomed the roses of summer
When the dainty Spring blossoms were gone.
I find it quite hard to be partial ;
Most delicious the whole of them are ;
So I'll leave you the sweet-smelling flowers—
My choice is " bouquet de cigare.''
That note that was brought me this morning
(How it made my heart flutter and thrill !) —
Well, the scent of the weed he'd been smoking
As he wrote it was clinging there still.
And as I read on, dear, it mingled
With words, oh ! so welcome to me :
He loves me, he loves me ! and, Jennie,
Next summer a bridesmaid you'll be.
196 BOUQUET DE CIGARE.
How you stare ! — your blue eyes full of wonder
Yet it may be the day isn't far
When for you, too, the perfume of perfumes
Will be, dear, " bouquet de cigare ! "
Harpei-'s Weekly,
THE SCENT OF A GOOD CIGAR. 197
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. Carrinzion.
198 MY CIGARETTE.
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 ascendinf
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 paper's 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 !
MY CIGARETTE. 199
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. Lum
200 AN OLD PIPE.
AN OLD PIPE.
Old ruined pipe, that all would cast aside,
Nor give thy fate a single transient thought.
To me with tender memories thou art fraught,
Recalling those brief days of happy pride
When my sweet Lady wandered by my side
Through life's strange ways, and always unbesought
Came rapturous joys no wealth had ever bought,
And I each day by love was deified.
For once, I mind it well, in playful vein,
She filled thee with the fragrant honeyed weed
And lit it for me with such witching grace
I could not choose withhold the lonesome meed.
And now thou bringest to my sight her face
As then she thrilled beneath my kiss's strain.
"GIVE A MAN A HORSE." 201
«*GIVE A MAN A HORSE HE CAN RIDE.'
Give a man a horse he can ride,
Give a man a boat he can sail ;
And his rank and wealth, his strength and health,
On sea nor shore shall fail.
Give a man a pipe he can smoke,
Give a man a book he can read ;
And his home is bright with a calm delight,
Though the room be poor indeed.
Give a man a girl he can love.
As I, O my Love, love thee ;
And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,
At home, on land, on sea.
James The
202 "GREY CLOUDS COME PUFFING."
GREY CLOUDS COME PUFFING FROM
MY LIPS."
Grey clouds come puffing from my lips
And hang there softly curling,
While from the bowl now leaps, now slips,
A steel-blue thread high-twirling.
As I lie, as I lie.
The hours fold their wings beneath the sky;
As you lean, as you lean,
In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene.
I gaze on you and I am crowned,
A Monarch great and glorious,
A Hero in all realms renowned,
A Faerie Prince victorious.
As I lie, as I lie,
The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ;
As you lean, as you lean.
In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene.
Your violet eyes pour out their whole
Pure light in earnest rapture;
Your thoughts come dreaming through my soul.
And nestle past recapture.
"GREY CLOUDS COME PUFFING." 203
As I lie, as I lie,
The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ;
As you lean, as you lean,
In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene.
O friends, your best years to the oar
Like galley-slaves devoting,
This is and shall be evermore
The true sublime of boating !
As I lie, as I lie,
The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ;
As you lean, as you lean.
In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene.
James Thomson.
!o4 FROM THE TERRACE.
FROM THE TERRACE.
Go, little wreath of smoke, apace
Waft an illicit faint perfume
Across the interdicted space
Of yonder little lamplit room.
Tell her who lingers there and reads,
Yet in my absence hides a yawn,
That the soft voice of summer pleads
For her sweet presence on the lawn.
Say that above the deep-blue hills
Hangs, fair to see, the sickle moon,
And that a mellow fragrance fills
The orchard mown this afternoon.
Say that your soothing influence,
With hopeful sentiment combined,
Inspires to rare benevolence
A lover who hath newly dined.
And if perchance the garden seat
Where drowsy beetles wheel and hum,
Can tempt her not from her retreat,
And if she still refuse to come,
FROM THE TERRACE. 205
Then whisper, cigarette of mine,
Forebodings in her ear apart,
Of incense offered at a shrine
That still hath something of my heart.
Alfred Cochrane.
2o6 IN WREATHS OF SMOKE.
IN WREATHS OF SMOKE.
In wreaths of smoke, blown waywardwise,
Faces of olden days uprise,
And in his dreamer's reverie
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 Nt-wion Holman.
ARTIST FRIENDS. 207
ARTIST FRIENDS.
Good-bye, good-bye ! Throughout the livelong clay
The friends have conversed freely as friends may,
And now at length, the hour of parting come,
The one is left, the other to his home
Returning, she regaineth by the stair
The dim deserted studio, finding there
No friend indeed, but still within the room
There lingers something, the soft warm perfume
Of smoke that went not with him as it seems,
For smoke the all-pervading stuff of dreams
Remaining yet, displaces Emptiness
And dulls the eager outline of Distress.
Anon.
2o8 SUB ROSA.
SUB ROSA.
" Fair friend of mine, the lips that taught
The trick of blowing rings
Must answer for the wanton thought
Of kissing that it brings ! "
What wonder then that Love's recruit,
Scarce waiting to be heard,
Proceeded then and there to suit
The action to the word ?
Ernest Radford.
THE PERSISTENT FEMININE.
THE PERSISTENT FEMININE.
The other night I sat me down,
The thought of you for once forswearing
To try to write immortal verse
On quite another subject bearing.
In vain I racked my brain to find
Ideas new and true and striking, —
In vain ! My muse was obdurate,
All other themes than you misliking.
I lit my pipe — 'tis wonderful
How much tobacco helps a poet —
But there was magic in the smoke,
For lo your face was smiling through it
Smiling as you are wont to smile
When you outring me most completely,
Dear rival in the gentle art
Of blowing cigarette-rings neatly.
Have bards of greater fame than I,
Milton, Le Gallienne, or Homer,
Come ever to so sad a pass,
Found inspiration a misnomer?
14
210 THE PERSISTENT FEMININE.
Have they discovered that the muse
Is apt to come and go by flashes,
Have they — at least the former two —
Found nothing in their pipes but ashes ?
None can escape his destiny,
I muttered softly, *' Plague upon it,'
And set myself to write forthwith
To you, my dear, another sonnet ?
PV, G. H.
ON THE BRINK. 211
ON THE BRINK.
The fire was hrisky the weed was ripe^
The pleasant Peri of the Pipe,
More glad than May,
Fondled the swain and made him bold.
His lips zvere loosed, and thus he trolled
His artless lay.
Pipe of my Soul, the day draws near
When, of dear dreams the dream most dear
Its earthly shape
Assuming, She we both adore,
Our Saint, will quit her shrine, no more
To ask escape.
The blue-eyed maid so kind and good,
Our own Madonna, mild of mood,
Will take her stand
Within our march, till all depart
To rest beside us, heart with heart
And hand in hand.
212 ON THE BRINK.
She gave you to me long ago
Wilh gentle words and wiles, and so
I cherish you.
And you have been, as doth become
A fraction of her love's sweet sum,
To me most true.
O creamy once ! O pure and pale,
Of virgin sea- foam ! Pipes grow stale,
And men grow old.
From far your odours are discerned,
And use your moony tint hath burned
To black and gold.
Alas, my Dusky One ! The days
Pass, and each one his signet lays
On bowl and brow,
And pipes grow rank, and hearts grow wide.
And all our plans get modified —
One scarce knows how !
Completeness comes upon our lives.
Our sweethearts mellow into wives,
And with the ring
Wax masterful, till in the end
Our pipe is, like our quondam friend,
An odious thing.
ON THE BRINK. 213
My Fetish sweet and strong ! and shall
Ozir times be made canonical ?
Shall toe be fain
To hide ourselves, or take the street,
Or cease the commerce bland and sweet
We yet maintain ?
Who knows ? — She is the best of girls,
Her temper's golden as her curls,
And yet ! I doubt
It's a toss-up. And who shall win,
My Houri ? Will she keep you in ?
Or put you out ?
He ceased. The fij-e was grey and dull ^
There was no ^ baccy in the scull ;
He shook his head^
Then laid his ttmbred darling doiun,
Turned ivith a sovicwhat sleepy frown^
Arid wenl to bed.
214 A NOVICE.
A NOVICE.
What is it, in these latter days,
Transfigures my domestic ways,
And round me, as a halo, plays ?
My cigarette.
For me so daintily prepared.
No modern skill, or perfume, spared.
What would have happened had I dared
To pass it yet ?
What else could lighten times of woe,
When some one says *' I told you so,"
When all the servants, in a row,
Give notices ?
When all the family affairs
Demand the most gigantic cares
And one is very ill upstairs.
With poultices.
What else could ease my aching head,
When, though I long to be in bed,
I settle steadily instead
To my accounts ?
A NOVICE. 215
And while the house is slumbering
Go over them Uke anything,
And find them ever varying
In their amounts !
Ah yes, the cook may spoil the broth,
The cream of Life resolves to froth,
I cannot now, though very wroth
Distracted be;
For as the smoke curls blue and thin
From my own lips, I just begin
To bathe my tired spirit in
Philosophy.
And sweetest healing on her pours,
Once more into the world she soars,
And sees it full of open doors,
And helping hands.
In spite of those who, knocking, stay
At sullen portals day by day,
And weary at the long delay
To their demands.
The promised epoch, like a star.
Shines very bright and very far,
But nothing shall its lustre mar,
Though distant yet.
2i6 A NOVICE.
If I, in vain, must sit and wait,
To realise our future state,
I shall not be disconsolate,
My cigarette !
Dollie Radford.
SISTERS OF THE CIGARETTE. 217
THE SISTERS OF THE CIGARETTE.
(by one of TIIEM.)
Now 'tis really quite a shame
For the sterner sex to blame
Without heed
All their sisters who may find
Consolation to the mind
In a weed.
Pray, why shouldn't we enjoy
That most tranquillising toy
Now and then?
Why should custom thus confine
Such a pleasant anodyne
To you men ?
Our lives are just as harried,
Be we single — be we married —
As are yours.
(Ah, the suffering unknov.'n
That a woman without moan
Oft endures !)
And you say tobacco serves
The tension of your nerves
To unloose :
i8 SISTERS OF THE CIGARETTE.
Let the sauce good for the gander
Then be seasoned without slander
For the goose !
In the small domestic round
What annoyances are found
Day by day !
In this dropping-well of cares
The soft stone of patience wears
Quite away.
When at seven Madame Vine
Sends the gown that I must dine
Out at eight in,
And the sleeve is put in wrong,
And the skirt is miles too long
To walk straight in.
When my treasure of a cook
Wears a supercilious look
As I ask
Why the joint that yestere'en
Seemed so plump is now so lean ?
(Morning task !)
When that scatter-brained Sophia
Disregards the drawing-room fac,
And the boy
SISTERS OF THE CIGARETTE. 219
That in buttons I have placed
Shows a Bacchanalian taste
P^or " the boy " ;
Why when all these petty woes
Make a total big as those
Borne by man,
Mayn't we have the blessed chance
Our comfort to advance
If we can ?
It should be a female "grief"
That our temper that relief
Must forgo
Which a " Melachrino" sweet
In its papillote so neat,
Could bestow.
Cotsford Dick.
220 THE DUET.
THE DUET.
I WAS smoking a cigarette ;
Maud, my wife, and the tenor, McKey,
V/ere singing together a bHthe 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 il all.
As they sang together, the whole scene fled,
The room's rich hangings, the sweet home air,
Stately INIaud, with her proud blonde 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 v/car
In the days I should forget.
And your lips, as red as the vintage we quaffed,
Were pearl edged bumpers of v/inc when you
laa^hed.
THE DUET. 221
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 qii'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.
222 PASTEL.
PASTEL.
The light of our cigarettes
Went and came in the gloom :
It was dark in the little room.
Dark, and then, in the dark,
Sudden a flash, a glow,
And a hand and a ring I know.
And then through the dark, a flush
Ruddy and vague, the grace —
A rose — of her lyric face.
Artlinr Symom
IxN BOHEMIA. 223
IN BOHEMIA.
Drawn blinds and flaring gas within,
And wine and women and cigars ;
Without, the city's heedless din ;
Above, the white unheeding stars.
And we, alike from each remote.
The world that works, the heaven that waits,
Con our brief pleasures o'er by rote,
The favourite pastime of the Fates.
We smoke, to fancy that we dream.
And drink, a moment's joy to prove,
And fain would love, and only seem
To love because we cannot love.
Draw back the blinds, put out the light ;
, 'Tis morning, let the daylight come.
CI God ! how the woman's cheeks are white,
1 And how the sunlight strikes us dumb !
Arthur Synions.
224 PIPES AND BEER.
PIPES AND BEER.
Bkfore I was famous I used to sit
In a dull old underground 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 blonde 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 nieant, 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 !
PIPES AND BEER. 225
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 underground !
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, —
IS
226 PIPES AND BEER.
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.
PIPES AND BEER. 227
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 always assume success?
228 PIPES AND BEER.
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.
CIGARS AND BEER.
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 ?
230 CIGARS AND BEER.
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 Aj/ioIJ.
IF I WERE KING. 231
IF I WERE KING.
l!-" I '.vcre 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 PhiHsline 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.
1877. IF. E. IlJ^^lsty*!
233 A MORALirV.
A MORALITY.
Of all the meals that ever were
(My stormful youth's conclusion this is)
None for a minute will compare
With one of bread and cheese and kisses.
Ah me ! Across the sundering seas
The summer twinkles with the swallow.
Well, well ! — a crust of bread and cheese ?
With pleasure — and a pipe to follow.
1S77. IF. E. H.
LOVE AND TOBACCO. 23
LOVE AND TOBACCO.
The Artist feeling for his type,
The rose may miss, the thorn may rue ;
My dream is rounded with my pipe,
My pipe and You.
Renown's a shy and shifty snipe
That other guns to death may do ;
I trudge along towards my pipe,
My pipe and You.
For all the Fruits of Time were ripe,
And all the skies of Chance were blue,
If only I possessed my pipe.
My pipe and You.
1877. n'- £• li'
\
234 OH, TRY THE WEED !
on, TRY TPIE WEED!
Oh, try the Weed when Circumstance entangles
Thy weary feet among her viewless gins,
When Failure plan and purpose maims and mangles,
When at thy heels Ennui the catchpole dangles,
When in thy face the troll. Misfortune, grins !
Hast thou a love that pouts, a wife that wrangles,
A mother-in-law whose art thy belfry jangles,
An ancient debt, a sudden yoke of twins.
Oh, try the Weed !
It hangs thy starving dreams with brilliant bangles ;
It coaxes into curves, it suavely wins
To rotund symmetry. Life's knottiest angles ;
Time's whirligig more comfortably spins,
Under a sky its tender touch bespangles —
Oh, try the Weed !
1877. ^F. E. H.
INTER SODALES. 235
INTER SODALES.
Over a pipe the Angel of Conversation
Loosens with glee the tassels of his purse,
And, in a fine spiritual exaltation,
Hastens, a very spendthrift, to disburse
The coins new minted of imagination.
An amiable, a delicate animation
Informs our thought, and earnest we rehearse
The sweet old farce of mutual admiration
Over a pipe.
Heard in this hoiir's delicious divagation,
How soft the song ! the epigram how terse !
With what a genius for administration
We rearrange the rambling universe,
And map the course of man's regeneration,
Over a pipe !
[S75. IK E. H.
ixb MY MEERSCHAUM PIPE.
MY MEERSCHAUM PIPE.
My Meerschaum Pipe is exquisitely dipped !
Shining, and silver-zoned, and amber-tipped,
In close chromatic passages that number
The tones of brown from cinnamon to umber,
Roll the rich harmonies of shank and crypt
Couchant, and of its purple cushions clipped,
Its dusky loveliness I wake from slumber.
Was ever maid than thou more softly lipped.
My Meerschaum Pipe ?
How many pangs herethro' have lightly tripped
Into the past, that wharf of aery lumber?
How many plans, bright-armed and all equipt,
Out of this glowing brain have skyward skipped ?
Memories that hallow, O regrets that cumber
My INIeerschaum Pipe !
1875. ^V. E. H.
PIPE OF I\IY SOUL. 237
PIPE OF MY SOUL.
Pipe ot my soul, our perfumed reverie,
A mild-eyed and mysterious ecstasy,
In purple whorls and delicate spires ascending
Like hope materialised, inquiringly
Towards the unknown Infinite is wending.
The master secret of mortality.
The viewless line this visible life subtending,
Whilom so dim, grows almost plain to me,
Pipe of my Soul !
And as the angels come, the demons flee.
Thine artist influence beautifully blending
The light that is, the dark that may not be,
The great Perhaps above all things impending
Melts large and luminous into thine and thee,
Pipe of my Soul !
1877. ^K E. H.
238 INTERJECTIONS.
INTERJECTIONS.
*• C'gar lights, yer honour ? C'gar lights ? "—
May Gawd forgit you in your need.
Ay, damn you, when folk git ther rights —
*' C'gar lights, yer honour ? C'gar lights ? "—
Ther childern shan't starve in the nights
For wantin' the price of yer weed !
*' C'gar lights, yer honour ? C'gar lights ? "
(May Gawd forgit you in your need.)
Ernest Rcuiford.
THE DROWNING FUSEE. 239
BALLADE OF THE DROWNING FUSEE.
The pipe I intend to consume
Is full, and fairly alight :
It scatters a fragrant perfume,
Blue smoke-wreaths are heaving in sight
I sink on the heathery height,
And lo ! there is borne unto me.
From a sweet little stream on my right,
The song of the drowning fusee.
The monarch of water-fowl, whom,
On the brink of an infinite night,
A strange irresistible doom
Converts to a musical wight,
Is akin, in his glory's despite,
To a moribund match, as we see.
While we listen, in speechless delight,
To the song of the drowning fusee.
As he sinks in his watery tomb.
His epitaph let me indite.
He hardly took up any room ;
Ilis life was retired; his end bright.
240 THE DROWNING FUSEE.
With destiny no one can fight,
All poets and prosers agree,
And a tribute to destiny's might
Is the song of the drowning fusee.
ENVOY.
Friend ! would you be gratified quite,
The first of our poets to be ?
If so, I advise you to write
The song of the drowning fusee.
J. K. Stephen.
Ox\ A r,ROKEN PIPE. 241
ON A BPvOKEN 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?
James Thofuson.
I
16
242 "AND LIFE IS LIKE A PIPE."
AND LIFE IS LIKE A PIPE.
And life is like a pipe,
And love is the fusee ;
The pipe draws well, but bar the light.
And what's the use to me ?
So light it up, and puff away
An empty morning through,
And when it's out — why love is out,
And life's as well out too !
Jlieo. Marziah,
REFLECTIONS OF A SMOKER. 243
EDIFYING REFLECTIONS OF A SMOKKK
Set to music bj' Johann Sebastian Bach.
As oft I fill ray 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 1 is but the same !
My pipe I colour not, nor paint ;
White it reniains, 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 !
REFLECTIONS OF A SMOKER.
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 1
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.
German [Ano}i.)y translaUd by Edward Breck.
ODE TO MV CIGAR. 245
ODE TO MV CIGAR.
Vi:s, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctors' spite ;
T!;y clouds all other clouds dispel,
And lap me in delight.
What though they tell, with phizzes long,
JMy years are sooner passed ?
I would reply, with reason strong,
" They're sweeter while they last."'
And oft, mild friend, to me thou art
A monitor, though still ;
Thou speak'st a lesson to my heart,
Beyond the preacher's skill.
Thou'rt like the man of worth who gives
To goodness every day,
The odour of whose virtues lives
When he has passed away.
Wlien in the lonely evening hour,
Attended but by thee.
O'er history's varied page I pore,
Man's fate in thine I sec.
246 ODE TO MY CIGAR.
Oft, as thy snowy column grows,
Then breaks and falls away,
I trace how mighty realms thus rose,
Thus trembled 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 dusky death.
From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe
One common doom is passed ;
Sweet nature's work, 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 must lie low.
My soul shall cleave the sky.
Cliarks Spraguc.
The philosophy of smoke.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKE.
"Ex fiuno dare lucera."
The Meerschaum while, or the brown briar-root —
How many phases of life they suit !
Good luck or bad luck, glory or gloom,
All tone to one colour— take one perfume.
If you've just "struck oil," and with pride run mad.
If you haven't a sou, and are bound to the bad —
Good luck may vanish, or bad luck mend :
Put each in your pipe and smoke it, friend !
If you love a Lady fair to view,
And she turns with a cold contempt from you,
While at your rival a smile she darts —
Walking with pride on a pathway of hearts,
Wrapt in her softness, dainty and nice,
Fire in her eyes, at her bosom ice —
In search of returns precious time why spend ?
Put your love in your pipe and smoke it, friend !
If you climb the ladder of politics, where
Whoso ascends breathes difficult air ;
And, being highest of men of the time.
Are slightly elate with your seat sublime,
548 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKE.
A little apt at yourself to wonder,
And mistake your own bray for real thunder ;
Think how rockets rise and how sticks descend —
Put success in your pipe and smoke it, friend.
If Fame be your football, any day
A stronger player may kick it away.
Round you to-day lion-hunters smother ;
Next week the Lion's skin goes to another.
From Popularity's box-seat hurled,
Lie still and see your successor purled.
A nine-days' wonder nine days will spend :
So put "vogue" in your pipe and smoke it, friend !
Punch.
WITH ril'K AND BOOK. 249
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,
II 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 succour me,
But ask this much, O Fate, of thee,
A little longer yet to stay
With Pipe and Book.
Richard Le Gallienne.
THE HAPPY SMOKING GROUND.
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 ? VvHiither 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 ;
?>Iay not tlie Smoker hope to take
His "cutty" from below?
THE HAPPY SMOKING GROUND. 251
So let us trust, and wlien at lenglli
You lay me 'neath the yew,
Foit^et not, O my friends, I pray.
Pipes and tobacco too.
Richayd Le Gallieiine.
EriLOGUE.
EI'ILOGUE.
To my Pipe.
To you, my Pipe, the latest verse,
7'o you, for better or for worse,
My best, most constant, closest friend^
I give requital at the end
Of this small volume all compact
Of fancy, folly, sober fact.
Wherein a-many bards combine
Hosannas to the Herb divine.
Sounding with no uncertain phrase
The diapason of its praise.
Small cause for wonderment indeed
That poets thus should sing the weed ;
A weed I There never was aflovfr
Of greater worth in Eden bowr.
For quite unparadised were we
Lacking its genial amity.
Dear Cloud-compeller, many a fill
Shall be your easy burden still, —
With you bciween his lips alight
A disi litis ioned anchorite
EPILOGUE.
Might cast away his cayikered sconi
And know that night's the womb of inorn
For yoti have fewer to cheer and bless
The man of deepest dolefulness^
I come to yen for peace, and lo
A tranquil quietude I know —
Foreboded sorrow grows remo-'e.
Out of your glozving embers float
My cares with wings of smoke unfurtd
And go to seek another world.
Undying as the fire divine
That burned in Vesta's votive shrine,
You and the like of you shall be
Doivered with immortality.
25;
VV. G. H.
NOTES.
NOTES,
Page 3.
^'eiy little is known concerning Barclay's life, though he was
one of the most distinguished Scots abroad of his time. lie
•was born, probably about 1570, in Aberdeenshire, studied under
the famous Justus Lipsius at Louvain, where he appears to
have taken the degrees of M.A. and M.D., and at one time was
Professor of Humanity in the University of Paris. For a short
period he practised medicine in Scotland, but finally returned
to France, where he died about 1630. His works were in Latin
with the exception of Nepenthes and Callirhoe, or the Nymjjhe
of Aberdene.
Page 9.
This spirited ditty is sung by Phlegmaticus, one of the drama-
tis personce in The Marriage of the Arts, an allegorical comedy,
performed in 1621 by students of Christ Church, Oxford, before
James I. at Woodstock. The King was but little pleased with
the play, indeed, to quote Anthony a Wood, he " offered several
times to withdraw, but being persuaded by some of tliose who
were near him to have patience till it were ended, lest the
young men should be discouraged, [he] adventured it, though
much against his will." Whereupon soma Cambridge wit,
pleased at the discomfiture of Oxford, delivered himself of a
i.omewhat halting epigram ;
17
258 NOTES.
" At Christ Church Marriage, played before the King,
Lest these learned mates should want an offering,
The King, himself, did offer— What, I pray ?
He offered twice or thrice to go away."
It is not surprising that the royal author of the Counterblast
to Tobacco should have had his feelings rufifled ; for Phlegma-
ticus was clad "in a pale russet suit, on the back whereof was
represented one filling a pipe of tobacco, his hat beset round
about with tobacco-pipes, with a can of drink hanging at his
girdle," and entered exclaiming, "'Fore Jove, most meteoro-
logical tobacco 1 Pure Indian ! not a jot sophisticated ; a
tobacco-pipe is the chimney of perpetual hospitality. 'Fore
Jove, most metropolitan tobacco ! " and with that burst forth
with his song.
Page 11.
In Samuel Rowlands (1570?- 1630) it is probable that we have
a representative pamphleteer of the Elizabethan age. Un-
fortunately only the veriest trifle is known of his literary
career, which began in 1598 with The Betraying of Christ and
ended in 1628 with Heaven's Glory: Seek it. Earth's Vanitie:
Flye it. Hell's Horrour : Fere it. As their titles imply, these
two works are of a religious nature, but the majority of his
writings, two of which achieved the distinction of being
publicly burnt, were either satirical or farcical. The epigram
and the song in the present volume are taken from Humor's
Looking Glasse and The Knave of Clubs respectively.
Page 13.
Saint-Amant's two sonnets are fairly characteristic of the
man: a poet of no mean abihty, a hon vivant, a "bonnie
fighter," and a wanderer over the face of God's earth.
Paris, Rome, Piedmont, London, Stockholm, and Poland-
he ruffled it gallantly in all of them, but knew no abiding city
from liis birth in 1594 to his death in 1660. Curiously enough,
he was one of the first members of the French Academy, but
NOTES. 259
its meetings had less attraction for him than those at the
Ep^e Royale or the Fosse aux Lions, and his thirty-nine
colleagues, 'tis to be feared, saw but little of him. The latter
years of his life were passed in a poverty that must have been
in cruel contrast to his time of prodigality, and he no doubt
found the husks that the swine did eat uncommonly poor fare.
In one of his sonnets he gives a vivid picture of his evil days :
" Coucher trois dans un lit, sans drap et sans chandolle,
Au plus fort de I'hiver, dans la salle aux fagots
Oil les chats, ruminant le langage des Goths,
Nous ^clairent de I'ceil en roulant la prunelle."
Page 15.
Jacob Cats, who achieved the affectionate nickname of
" Father Cats," was born in 1577 at Brouwershaven, in Holland,
and began his career as a physician, but afterwards entered
political life, in which he won some reputation as ambassador
to England. His name has however survived rather as that of
a voluminous, amiable, and, at times, charming poet— a Dutch
La Fontaine perhaps, but a La Fontaine who would have
hesitated to put his name to the Contes. He was a great
favourite with Southey, who, writing to Miss Bowles (Oct. 14,
1825), says of him, " The poet of all poets, who has done most
good to his country, and whose volume in the good days of
Holland lay upon the hall table with the family Bible in every
respectable house." "Without doubt this popularity was due to
Cats' strong points as a writer of verse being precisely those
which appeal to the average re\der— transparent simplicity,
innocent gaiety, commonplace morality.
Page 19.
The authorship of "The Indian Weed" is a theme that has
greatly exercised the minds of such as love to explore the
by-ways of literature, but it still remains more or less of a
mystery. The poem appeared intermittently, and with varia-
tions, in many broadsides and collections of the seventeenth
26o NOTES.
century, and is a well-known number in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge
Melancholy (1719). Its earliest appearance is in a manuscript
volume of James I 's rei^n, where its first verse runs :
" Why should we so much despise
So j:ood and wholesome an exercise
As, early and late to meditate ?
Thus think, and drink tobacco."
Appended to this version are the initials G.W., which some
would make us think represent the famous Puritan poet
George Wither. But if Wither wrote the poem, he celol)rated
tobacco, not that he loved the weed more, but that he loved
the reigning monarch less, and of deliberate purpose sought
to go counter to his prejudices ; for, in a publication issued in
1672, called Txoo Broadsides against Tobacco : The first given by
King James of blessed memory, his Counterblast to Tobacco ; the
second transcribed out of that learned 2)hysician Dr. Edxoard
Maynewarinje, his Treatise of the Scurvy. To ivhich are added
sundry cautions, etc., we are told that George Wither, far from
being the author of the poem in question, Avrote a reply to it,
the refrain of which was :
" Thus think, drink no tobacco."
So this question of authorship must be left apparently. As
every reader of Elizabethan and seventeenth century authors
knows, "drinkhig tobacco" was the current phrase for
smoking.
Page 23.
Graevius was a learned German of the seventeenth century,
who fathered scores of editions of classical and modern authors,
and eighteen children. Born at Naumburg, in Saxony (1632),
he spent the greater part of a laborious life in Holland, where,
from the age of twenty -four onwards, he occupied professorships
and busied himself with unceasing editorial work, until his
death from apoplexy in 1703.
NOTES. 261
Page 27.
"Sweet sraoaking Pipe," the authorship of which is, so far
as I am aware, unknown, is quoted Avith hi^h approval in
M. Misson's Memoirs. See Introduction, p. xxii.
Page 23.
Isaac Hawkins Browne (1706-1776) practised law and dallied
Avith verse in Latin and English, the theme of his principal
poem in the former tongue bein;? tlie Immortality of the Soul.
In his English verse honours are divided between aesthetics and
tobacco, his best known effusion, apart from that Included in
this volume, being one on "Design and Beauty," which he
inscribed to Joseph Highmore, the painter of "Hagar and
Ishmael " in the Foundling Hospital.
Page S3.
Gabriel Charles de L'Attaignant (born in Paris 1697, died
there 1779), the author of the best known poem on snuff extant,
was one of those charming French abbes of the eighteenth
century who, in Ars^ne Houssaye's words, VFere " amiable
pagans living gaily outside the Church, who read a different
sense into Scripture from that in vogue now. They went to the
Court, to balls, and the Opera ; they masked and dabbled in
adventure— and they said their prayers after supper." However,
L'Attaignant is said to have seen the error of his ways at the
age of eighty, when, no doubt, the pleasure of them had
evaporated, and to have made an edifying end. As a rhyme-
ster he was facile enough ; but, apart from " J'ai du bon tabac,"
his verses have had the dust of oblivion on them these many
years.
FxGK 142.
J. V. von Scheffel, the most popular of modern German poets,
V, as born in 1836 and died in 1836. The Trumpeter of Sackinjen,
his principal work, published in 1852, has run through two
hundred editions, and seems destined to run through as many
more, which is somev/hat singular, consideiing the modern
262 NOTES.
unpopularity of long poems, and the fact that ScheCt'el did not
sacrifice his artistic ideals for the sake of appealing to a wide
audience. In May 1897 a statue to Scheffel's memory was
unveiled in the Swabian Mountains, and on this occasion
Hermann Sudormann, the distinguished German playwright
and poet, delivered a graceful Gclegenheitsjedicht (published in
Cosmopolis for 1898), in which he prophesied eternal life for
the author of the Trumpeter in every German heart that
cherished the "dumme deutsche Maiensehnsucht."
Page 184.
The poet, the loss and romantic recovery of v/hose pipe is
told in these verses, was Tennyson ; and I understand the story
is true, the pipe being cherished as a precious relic to this day
by the finder. Tlie poem originally appeared in Restormel : A
Legend of Piers Gavedon, the Patriot Priest, and other Verses.
By the Author of the Vale of Lanherne, etc. London :
Longmans, 1875.
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been added to the present edition being those of MM.
Paderewski (to whom the book is dedicated), Mascagni,
Eugen d' Albert, Sarasate, Hamisli McCunn, and C. Hubert
Parry. Merely as a volume of poetry about music, this
book makes a charming anthology, the selections of verse
extending from a period anterior to Chaucer to the present
day. A new binding has also been specially designed.
London : Walter Scott, Limited, Paternoster Square.
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2M7,
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