Chorus. Then smoke away till a golden ray
        Lights up the dawn of the morrow,
      For a cheerful cigar, like a shield, will bar,
        The blows of care and sorrow.

  The leaf burns bright, like the gems of light
    That flash in the braids of Beauty;
  It nerves each heart for the hero’s part
    On the battle-plain of duty.

  In the thoughtful gloom of his darkened room,
    Sits the child of song and story,
  But his heart is light, for his pipe burns bright,
    And his dreams are all of glory.

  By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire,
    And infant arras surround him;
  And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall,
    While the smoke-curls float around him.

  In the forest grand of our native land,
    When the savage conflict ended,
  The “pipe of peace” brought a sweet release
    From toil and terror blended.

  The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain
    ’Neath their arbor shades trip lightly,
  And a gleaming cigar, like a new-born star,
    In the clasp of their lips burns brightly

  It warms the soul like the blushing bowl,
    With its rose-red burden streaming,
  And drowns it in bliss, like the first warm kiss
    From the lips with love-buds teeming.

FRANCIS MILES FINCH.

A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.

  May the Babylonish curse
  Straight confound my stammering verse
  If I can a passage see
  In this word-perplexity,
  Or a fit expression find,
  Or a language to my mind
  (Still the phrase is wide or scant),
  To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! 
  Or in any terms relate
  Half my love, or half my hate: 
  For I hate, yet love, thee so,
  That, whichever thing I show,
  The plain truth will seem to be
  A constrain’d hyperbole,
  And the passion to proceed
  More from a mistress than a weed.

  Sooty retainer to the vine,
  Bacchus’ black servant, negro fine;
  Sorcerer, that mak’st us dote upon
  Thy begrimed complexion,
  And, for thy pernicious sake,
  More and greater oaths to break
  Than reclaimed lovers take
  ’Gainst women:  thou thy siege dost lay
  Much too in the female way,
  While thou suck’st the lab’ring breath
  Faster than kisses or than death.

    Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,
  That our worst foes cannot find us,
  And ill-fortune, that would thwart us,
  Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
  While each man, through thy height’ning steam
  Does like a smoking Etna seem,
  And all about us does express
  (Fancy and wit in richest dress)
  A Sicilian fruitfulness.

  Thou through such a mist dost show us,
  That our best friends do not know us,
  And, for those allowed features,
  Due to reasonable creatures,
  Liken’st us to fell Chimeras,
  Monsters that, who see us, fear us;
  Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
  Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.