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[Illustration: (Smoker)]

PIPE AND POUCH

THE

SMOKER'S OWN BOOK OF POETRY

COMPILED BY

JOSEPH KNIGHT

[Illustration]

BOSTON

JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY

1895

* * * * *

_COPYRIGHT, 1894,_

BY JOSEPH KNIGHT.

UNIVERSITY PRESS:

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

* * * * *

DEDICATED

TO MY FRIEND AND FELLOW-SMOKER,

WALTER MONTGOMERY JACKSON.

* * * * *

PREFACE.

This is an age of anthologies. Collections of poetry covering a wide
range of subjects have appeared of late, and seem to have met with
favor and approval. Not to the busy man only, but to the student of
literature such compilations are of value. It is sometimes objected
that they tend to discourage wide reading and original research; but
the overwhelming flood of books would seem to make them a necessity.
Unless one has the rare gift of being able to sprint through a book,
as Andrew Lang says Mr. Gladstone does, it is surely well to make
use of the labors of the industrious compiler. Such collections are
often the result of wide reading and patient labor. Frequently the
larger part is made up of single poems, the happy and perhaps only
inspiration of the writer, gleaned from the poet's corner of the
newspaper or the pages of a magazine. This is specially true of the
present compilation, the first on the subject aiming at anything like
completeness. Brief collections of prose and poetry combined have
already been published; but so much of value has been omitted that
there seemed to be room for a better book. A vast amount has been
written in praise of tobacco, much of it commonplace or lacking in
poetic quality. While some of the verse here gathered is an obvious
echo, or passes into unmistakable parody, it has been the aim of
the compiler to maintain, as far as possible, a high standard and
include only the best. From the days of Raleigh to the present
time, literature abounds in allusions to tobacco. The Elizabethan
writers constantly refer to it, often in praise though sometimes
in condemnation. The incoming of the "Indian weed" created a great
furore, and scarcely any other of the New World discoveries was talked
about so much. Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Fletcher, Spenser, Dekker, and
many other of the poets and dramatists of the time, make frequent
reference to it; and no doubt at the Mermaid tavern, pipes and tobacco
found a place beside the sack and ale. Singular to say, Shakespeare
makes no reference to it; and only once in his essay "Of Plantations,"
as far as the compiler has been able to discover, does Bacon speak
of it. Shakespeare's silence has been explained on the theory that
he could not introduce any reference to the newly discovered plant
without anachronism; but he did not often let a little thing of this
kind stand in his way. It has been suggested, on the other hand, that
he avoided all reference to it out of deference to King James I.,
who wrote the famous "Counterblast." Whichever theory is correct,
the fact remains, and it may be an interesting contribution to the
Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. Queen Elizabeth never showed any
hostility to tobacco; but her successors, James I. and the two
Charleses, and Cromwell were its bitter opponents. Notwithstanding
its enemies, who just as fiercely opposed the introduction of tea
and coffee, its use spread over Europe and the world, and prince
and peasant alike yielded to its mild but irresistible sway. Poets
and philosophers drew solace and inspiration from the pipe. Milton,
Addison, Fielding, Hobbes, and Newton were all smokers. It is said
Newton was smoking under a tree in his garden when the historic apple
fell. Scott, Campbell, Byron, Hood, and Lamb all smoked, and Carlyle
and Tennyson were rarely without a pipe in their mouths. The great
novelists, Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer were famous smokers; and so
were the great soldiers, Napoleon, Bluecher, and Grant. While nearly
all the poems here gathered together were written, and perhaps could
only have been written, by smokers, several among the best are the
work of authors who never use the weed,--one by a man, two or three
by women. Among the more recent writers there has been no more devoted
smoker than Mr. Lowell, as his recently published letters testify.
Three of the most delightful poems in praise of smoking are his, and
with Mr. Aldrich's charming "Latakia" are the gems of the collection.
The compiler desires to express his grateful acknowledgments to
friends who have permitted him to use their work and have otherwise
aided him from time to time; and to the many unknown authors whose
poems are here gathered, and whom it was quite impossible to reach;
and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, Harper & Brothers, The
Bowen-Merrill Company, and the publishers of "Outlook," for their
gracious permission to include copyrighted poems.

J.K.

BOSTON, July, 1894.

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

A.

PAGE
Acrostic _J.H._ 44
Ad Nicotina _E.N.S._ 118
Another Match _Cope's Tobacco Plant_ 45
Ashes _De Witt Sterry_ 47

B.

Bachelor's Invocation, A _Pall Mall Gazette_ 182
Bachelor's Views, A _Tom Hall_ 177
Bachelor's Soliloquy _Cigar and Tobacco World_ 95
Ballad of the Pipe, The _Hermann Rave_ 69
Ballade of Tobacco, The _Brander Matthews_ 54
Betrothed, The _Rudyard Kipling_ 108
Brief Puff of Smoke, A _Selim_ 19

C.

Cannon Song _H.P. Peck_ 85
Chibouque _Francis S. Saltus_ 173
Choosing a wife by a Pipe of Tobacco _Gentleman's Magazine_
48
Cigar, The _Thomas Hood_ 153
Cigarette Rings _J. Ashby-Sterry_ 147
Cigars and Beer _George Arnold_ 166
Clouds _Bauernfeld_ 52
Confession of a Cigar Smoker _Anon._ 158

D.

Discovery of Tobacco _Cigar and Tobacco World_ 64
Dreamer's Pipe, The _New Orleans Times Democrat_ 96
Duet, The _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_ 174

E.

Edifying Reflections of a Tobacco Smoker _Translated from the
German_ 58
Effusion by a Cigar Smoker _Horace Smith_ 167
Encomium on Tobacco, An _Anon._ 36
Epitaph _Anon._ 17

F.

Farewell to Tobacco, A _Charles Lamb_ 100
Farmer's Pipe, The _George Cooper_ 7
Forsaken of all comforts _Sir Robert Ayton_ 140
Free Puff, A _Arthur Irving Gray_ 121
Friend of my youth _Anon._ 164

G.

Geordie to his Tobacco Pipe _George S. Phillips_ 25
Glass is Good, A _John O'Keefe_ 94
Good Cigar, A _Norris Bull_ 93

H.

Happy Smoking Ground, The _Richard Le Gallienne_ 145
Her Brother's Cigarette _Anon._ 79
He Respondeth _Life_ 55
How it Once Was _New York Sun_ 78

I.

If I were King _W.E. Henley_ 171
I like Cigars _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_ 121
In Favor of Tobacco _Samuel Rowlands_ 52
Ingin Summer _Eva Wilder McGlasson_ 57
Inscription for a Tobacco Jar _Cope's Tobacco Plant_ 12
In Rotten Row _W.E. Henley_ 174
In the ol' Tobacker Patch _S.Q. Lapius_ 80
In the smoke of my dear cigarito _Camilla K. von K._ 92
Invocation to Tobacco _Henry James Mellen_ 31
In wreaths of Smoke _Frank Newton Holman_ 46
It may be Weeds _Anon._ 23

K.

"Keats took Snuff" _The Globe_ 68
Knickerbocker _Austin Dobson_ 63

L.

Last Pipe, The _London Spectator_ 12
Latakia _T.B. Aldrich_ 142
Latest Comfort, The _F.W. Littleton Hay_ 157
Loss, A _Judy_ 128
Lost Lotus, The _Anon._ 60

M.

Maecenas Bids his Friend to Dine _Anon._ 81
Meerschaum _Wrongfellow_ 119
Motto for a Tobacco Jar _Anon._ 12
My After-Dinner Cloud _Henry S. Leigh_ 143
My Cigar _Arthur W. Gundry_ 2
My Cigarette _Richard Barnard_ 52
My Cigarette _Charles F. Lummis_ 113
My Cigarette _Tom Hall_ 176
My Friendly Pipe _Detroit Tribune_ 94
My Little Brown Pipe _Amelia E. Barr_ 138
My Meerschaum Pipe _Johnson M. Mundy_ 123
My Meerschaums _Charles F. Lummis_ 131
My Pipe _German Smoking Song_ 7
My Pipe and I _Elton J. Buckley_ 106
My Three Loves _Henry S. Leigh_ 50

O.

Ode of Thanks, A _James Russell Lowell_ 33
Ode to My Pipe _Andrew Wynter_ 14
Ode to Tobacco _Daniel Webster_ 95
Ode to Tobacco _C.S. Calverly_ 134
Old Clay Pipe, The _A.B. Van Fleet_ 71
Old Pipe of Mine _John J. Gormley_ 83
Old Sweetheart of Mine, An _James Whitcomb Riley_ 165
On a Broken Pipe _Anon._ 112
On a Tobacco Jar _Bernard Barker_ 38
On Receipt of a Rare Pipe _W.H.B._ 135

P.

Patriotic Smoker's Lament _St. James Gazette_ 41
Pernicious Weed _William Cowper_ 73
Pipe and Tobacco _German Folk Song_ 156
Pipe Critic, The _Walter Littlefield_ 115
Pipe of Tobacco, A _John Usher_ 15
Pipe of Tobacco, A _Henry Fielding_ 163
Pipes and Beer _Edgar Fawcett_ 178
Pipe you make Yourself, The _Henry E. Brown_ 172
Poet's Pipe, The _Charles Baudelaire_ 2
Pot and a Pipe of Tobacco, A _Universal Songster_ 169

S.

Scent of a good Cigar, The _Kate A. Carrington_ 61
Seasonable Sweets _C._ 23
Sic Transit _W.B. Anderson_ 108
Sir Walter Raleigh! name of worth _Anon._ 158
Smoke and Chess _Samuel W. Duffield_ 10
Smoke is the Food of Lovers _Jacob Cats_ 51
Smoker's Reverie, The _Anon._ 17
Smoker's Calendar, The _Anon._ 159
Smoke Traveller, The _Irving Browne_ #74
Smoking Away _Francis Miles Finch_ 98
Smoking Song _Anon._ 77
Smoking Spiritualized _Ralph Erskine_ 148
Song of the Smoke-Wreaths _L.T.A._ 9
Song without a Name, A _W. Lloyd_ 117
Sublime Tobacco _Lord Byron_ 97
Sweet Smoking Pipe _Anon._ 146
Symphony in Smoke, A _Harper's Bazaar_ 22

T.

Those Ashes _R.K. Munkittrick_ 130
Titlepage Dedication _Anon._ 44
To an Old Pipe _De Witt Sterry_ 43
To a Pipe of Tobacco _Gentleman's Magazine_ 91
Tobacco _George Wither_ 86
Tobacco _Thomas Jones_ 151
Tobacco is an Indian Weed _From "Pills to Purge Melancholy"_
150
Tobacco, some say _Anon._ 164
To C.F. Bradford _James Russell Lowell_ 5
To My Cigar _Charles Sprague_ 62
To My Cigar _Friedrich Marc_ 165
To My Meerschaum _P.D.R._ 82
Too Great a Sacrifice _Anon._ 90
To see her Pipe Awry _C.F._ 55
To the Rev. Mr. Newton _William Cowper_ 126
To the Tobacco Pipe _The Meteor, London_ 39
True Leucothoe, The _Anon._ 129
'Twas off the Blue Canaries _Joseph Warren Fabens_ 140
Two other Hearts _London Tobacco_ 73

V.

Valentine, A _Anon._ 113
Virginia's kingly Plant _Anon._ 87
Virginia Tobacco _Stanley Gregson_ 31

W.

Warning, A _Arthur Lovell_ 124
What I Like _H.L._ 131
Winter Evening Hymn to My Fire, A _James Russell Lowell_
105
With Pipe and Book _Richard Le Gallienne_ 1

* * * * *

PIPE AND POUCH

* * * * *

WITH PIPE AND BOOK.

With Pipe and Book at close of day,
Oh, what is sweeter, mortal, say?
It matters not what book on knee,
Old Izaak or the Odyssey,
It matters not meerschaum or clay.

And though one's eyes will dream astray,
And lips forget to sue or sway,
It is "enough to merely be,"
With Pipe and Book.

What though our modern skies be gray,
As bards aver, I will not pray
For "soothing Death" to succor me,
But ask this much, O Fate, of thee,
A little longer yet to stay
With Pipe and Book.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.

A POET'S PIPE.

_FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE._

A poet's pipe am I,
And my Abyssinian tint
Is an unmistakable hint
That he lays me not often by.
When his soul is with grief o'erworn
I smoke like the cottage where
They are cooking the evening fare
For the laborer's return.

I enfold and cradle his soul
In the vapors moving and blue
That mount from my fiery mouth;
And there is power in my bowl
To charm his spirit and soothe,
And heal his weariness too.

RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD.

MY CIGAR.

In spite of my physician, who is, _entre nous_, a fogy,
And for every little pleasure has some pathologic bogy,
Who will bear with no small vices, and grows dismally prophetic
If I wander from the weary way of virtue dietetic;

In spite of dire forewarnings that my brains will all be scattered,
My memory extinguished, and my nervous system shattered,
That my hand will take to trembling, and my heart begin to flutter,
My digestion turn a rebel to my very bread and butter;

As I puff this mild Havana, and its ashes slowly lengthen,
I feel my courage gather and my resolution strengthen:
I will smoke, and I will praise you, my cigar, and I will light you
With tobacco-phobic pamphlets by the learned prigs who fight you!

Let him who has a mistress to her eyebrow write a sonnet,
Let the lover of a lily pen a languid ode upon it;
In such sentimental subjects I'm a Philistine and cynic,
And prefer the inspiration drawn from sources nicotinic.

So I sing of you, dear product of (I trust you are) Havana,
And if there's any question as to how my verses scan, a
Reason is my shyness in the Muses' aid invoking,
As, like other ancient maidens, they perchance object to smoking.

I have learnt with you the wisdom of contemplative quiescence,
While the world is in a ferment of unmeaning effervescence,
That its jar and rush and riot bring no good one-half so sterling
As your fleecy clouds of fragrance that are now about me curling.

So, let stocks go up or downward, and let politicians wrangle,
Let the parsons and philosophers grope in a wordy tangle,
Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars,
Be millionnaires or magnates, or senators or scholars.

I will puff my mild Havana, and I quietly will query,
Whether, when the strife is over, and the combatants are weary,
Their gains will be more brilliant than its faint expiring flashes,
Or more solid than this panful of its dead and sober ashes.

ARTHUR W. GUNDRY.

TO C.F. BRADFORD.

_ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE._

The pipe came safe, and welcome, too,
As anything must be from you;
A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light
As she the girls called Amphitrite.
Mixture divine of foam and clay,
From both it stole the best away:
Its foam is such as crowns the glow
Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot;
Its clay is but congested lymph
Jove chose to make some choicer nymph;
And here combined,--why, this must be
The birth of some enchanted sea,
Shaped to immortal form, the type
And very Venus of a pipe.

When high I heap it with the weed
From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed
Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore
And cast upon Virginia's shore,
I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl
And wise alembic of thy soul,
With herbs far-sought that shall distil,
Not fumes to slacken thought and will,
But bracing essences that nerve
To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.

When curls the smoke in eddies soft,
And hangs a shifting dream aloft,
That gives and takes, though chance-designed,
The impress of the dreamer's mind,
I'll think,--So let the vapors bred
By passion, in the heart or head,
Pass off and upward into space,
Waving farewells of tenderest grace,
Remembered in some happier time,
To blend their beauty with my rhyme.

While slowly o'er its candid bowl
The color deepens (as the soul
That burns in mortals leaves its trace
Of bale or beauty on the face),
I'll think,--So let the essence rare
Of years consuming make me fair;
So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse,
Steep me in some narcotic juice;
And if my soul must part with all
That whiteness which we greenness call,
Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown,
And make me beautifully brown!

Dream-forger, I refill thy cup
With reverie's wasteful pittance up,
And while the fire burns slow away,
Hiding itself in ashes gray,
I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats,
Compelled to spare his wasting heats,
When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about,
And my head's gray with fires burnt out,
While stays one spark to light the eye,
With the last flash of memory,
'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B.,
Who sent my favorite pipe to me.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

MY PIPE.

When love grows cool, thy fire still warms me;
When friends are fled, thy presence charms me.
If thou art full, though purse be bare,
I smoke, and cast away all care!

_German Smoking Song._

THE FARMER'S PIPE.

Make a picture, dreamy smoke,
In my still and cosey room;
From the fading past evoke
Forms that breathe of summer's bloom.

Bashful Will and rosy Nell--
Ah, I watch them now at play
By the mossy wayside well
As I did twelve years to-day.

We were younger then, my pipe:
You are dingy now and worn;
And my fruit is more than ripe,
And my fields are brown and shorn.

Nell has merry eyes of blue,
And is timid, pure, and mild;
Will is fair and brave and true,
And a neighboring farmer's child.

Little maid is busy, too,
Making rare, fictitious pies,
Just as any wife would do,
Looking, meanwhile, wondrous wise.

Drawing water from the well,
Delving sand upon the hill,
Going here and there for Nell,--
That's her helpmate, willing Will.

Yonder, in the waning light,
Hand in hand the truants come,
Nell so fearful lest the night
Should fall around her far from home.

Fading, fading, skyward flies
This joy-picture you have limned;
Pipe of mine, the quiet skies
Of my life you leave undimmed.

Nell and Will are lovers now;
There they stray in dying light.
That's a kiss! Ah, well, somehow
Nell's no more afraid at night!

GEORGE COOPER.

SONG OF THE SMOKE-WREATHS.

_SUNG TO THE SMOKERS._

Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
Not like mists that mask the sea,
Not like vapors round the fountains,--
Soft and clear and warm are we.

Hear the tempest, how its minions
Tear the clouds and heap the snows!
No storm-rage is in our pinions;
Who knows us, 'tis peace he knows.

Soaring from the burning censers,
Stealing forth through all the air,
Hovering as the mild dispensers
Over you of blisses rare,

Softly float we, softly blend we,
Tinted from the deep blue sky,
Scented from the myrrh-lands, bend we
Downward to you ere we die.

Ease we bring, and airy fancies,
Sober thoughts with visions gay,
Peace profound with daring glances
Through the clouds to endless day.

Not like clouds that cap the mountains,
Not like mists that mask the sea,
Not like vapors round the fountains,--
Soft and clear and warm are we.

L.T.A., in _London Society_.

SMOKE AND CHESS.

We were sitting at chess as the sun went down;
And he, from his meerschaum's glossy brown,
With a ring of smoke made his king a crown.

The cherry stem, with its amber tip,
Thoughtfully rested on his lip,
As the goblet's rim from which heroes sip.

And, looking out through the early green,
He called on his patron saint, I ween,--
That misty maiden, Saint Nicotine,--

While ever rested that crown so fair,
Poised in the warm and pulseless air,
On the carven chessman's ivory hair.

Dreamily wandered the game along,
Quietly moving at even-song,
While the striving kings stood firm and strong,

Until that one which of late was crowned
Flinched from a knight's determined bound,
And in sullen majesty left the ground,

Reeling back; and it came to pass
That, waiting to mutter no funeral mass,
A bishop had dealt him the _coup de grace_.

And so, as we sat, we reasoned still
Of fate and of fortune, of human will,
And what are the purposes men fulfil.

For we see at last, when the truth arrives,
The moves on the chess-board of our lives,--
That fields may be lost, though the king survives.

Not always he whom the world reveres
Merits its honor or wins its cheers,
Standing the best at the end of the years.

Not always he who has lost the fight
Rises again with the coming light,
Battles anew for his ancient right.

SAMUEL W. DUFFIELD.

INSCRIPTION FOR A TOBACCO JAR.

Keep me at hand; and as my fumes arise,
You'll find _a jar_ the gates of Paradise.

_Copes Tobacco Plant._

MOTTO FOR A TOBACCO JAR.

Come! don't refuse sweet Nicotina's aid,
But woo the goddess through a yard of clay;
And soon you'll own she is the fairest maid
To stifle pain, and drive old Care away.
Nor deem it waste; what though to ash she burns,
If for your outlay you get good returns!

THE LAST PIPE.

When head is sick and brain doth swim,
And heavy hangs each unstrung limb,
'Tis sweet through smoke-puffs, wreathing slow,
To watch the firelight flash or glow.
As each soft cloud floats up on high,
Some worry takes its wings to fly;
And Fancy dances with the flame,
Who lay so labor-crammed and lame;
While the spent Will, the slack Desire,
Re-kindle at the dying fire,
And burn to meet the morrow's sun
With all its day's work to be done.

The tedious tangle of the Law,
Your work ne'er done without some flaw;
Those ghastly streets that drive one mad,
With children joyless, elders sad,
Young men unmanly, girls going by
Bold-voiced, with eyes unmaidenly;
Christ dead two thousand years agone,
And kingdom come still all unwon;
Your own slack self that will not rise
Whole-hearted for the great emprise,--
Well, all these dark thoughts of the day
As thin smoke's shadow drift away.

And all those magic mists unclose,
And a girl's face amid them grows,--
The very look she's wont to wear,
The wild rose blossoms in her hair,
The wondrous depths of her pure eyes,
The maiden soul that 'neath them lies,
That fears to meet, yet will not fly,
Your stranger spirit drawing nigh.
What if our times seem sliding down?
She lives, creation's flower and crown.
What if your way seems dull and long?
Each tiny triumph over wrong,
Each effort up through sloth and fear,
And she and you are brought more near.
So rapping out these ashes light,--
"My pipe, you've served me well to-night."

_London Spectator_.

ODE TO MY PIPE.

O Blessed pipe,
That now I clutch within my gripe,
What joy is in thy smooth, round bowl,
As black as coal!

So sweetly wed
To thy blanched, gradual thread,
Like Desdemona to the Moor,
Thou pleasure's core.

What woman's lip
Could ever give, like thy red tip,
Such unremitting store of bliss,
Or such a kiss?

Oh, let me toy,
Ixion-like, with cloudy joy;
Thy stem with a most gentle slant
I eye askant!

Unseen, unheard,
Thy dreamy nectar is transferred,
The while serenity astride
Thy neck doth ride.

A burly cloud
Doth now thy outward beauties shroud:
And now a film doth upward creep,
Cuddling the cheek.

And now a ring,
A mimic silver quoit, takes wing;
Another and another mount on high,
Then spread and die.

They say in story
That good men have a crown of glory;
O beautiful and good, behold
The crowns unfold!

How did they live?
What pleasure could the Old World give
That ancient miserable lot
When thou wert not?

Oh, woe betide!
My oldest, dearest friend hath died,--
Died in my hand quite unaware,
Oh, Baccy rare!

ANDREW WYNTER.

A PIPE OF TOBACCO.

Let the toper regale in his tankard of ale,
Or with alcohol moisten his thrapple,
Only give me, I pray, a good pipe of soft clay,
Nicely tapered and thin in the stapple;
And I shall puff, puff, let who will say, "Enough!"
No luxury else I'm in lack o',
No malice I hoard 'gainst queen, prince, duke, or lord,
While I pull at my pipe of tobacco.

When I feel the hot strife of the battle of life,
And the prospect is aught but enticin',
Mayhap some real ill, like a protested bill,
Dims the sunshine that tinged the horizon:
Only let me puff, puff,--be they ever so rough,
All the sorrows of life I lose track o',
The mists disappear, and the vista is clear,
With a soothing mild pipe of tobacco.

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