Ah, “friendly traitress,” “loving foe,”
    Forgive this loving lay;
  For I, thy worshipper, would show
    The sweetness of thy sway. 
  “Sublime tobacco!” may thy reign
    Ne’er for one moment cease;
  For thou, Great Plant, art kin to brain,
    And synonym for peace.

E.H.S.

MEERSCHAUM.

  Come to me, O my meerschaum,
  For the vile street organs play;
  And the torture they’re inflicting
  Will vanish quite away.

  I open my study window
  And into the twilight peer,
  And my anxious eyes are watching
  For the man with my evening beer.

  In one hand is the shining pewter,
  All amber the ale doth glow;
  In t’other are long “churchwardens,”
  As spotless and pure as snow.

  Ah! what would the world be to us
  Tobaccoless?—­Fearful bore! 
  We should dread the day after to-morrow
  Worse than the day before.

  As the elephant’s trunk to the creature,
  Is the pipe to the man, I trow;
  Useful and meditative
  As the cud to the peaceful cow.

  So to the world is smoking;
  Through that we feel, with bliss
  That, whatever worlds come after,
  A jolly old world is this.

  Come to me, O my meerschaum,
  And whisper to me here,
  If you like me better than coffee,
  Than grog, or the bitter beer.

  Oh! what are our biggest winnings,
  If peaceful content we miss? 
  Though fortune may give us an innings
  She seldom conveys us bliss.

  You’re better than all the fortunes
  That ever were made or broke;
  For a penny will always fill
  And buy me content with a smoke.

WRONGFELLOW.

  I like cigars
  Beneath the stars,
  Upon the waters blue. 
  To laugh and float
  While rocks the boat
  Upon the waves,—­Don’t you?

  To rest the oar
  And float to shore,—­
  While soft the moonbeams shine,—­
  To laugh and joke,
  And idly smoke;
  I think is quite divine.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

“A FREE PUFF.”

Do you remember when first we met? 
I was turning twenty—­well!  I don’t forget
How I walked along,
Humming a song
Across the fields and down the lane
By the country road, and back again
To the dear old farm—­three miles or more—­
And brought you home from the village store.

Summer was passing—­don’t you recall
The splendid harvest we had that Fall,
And how when the Autumn died,—­sober and brown,—­
We trudged down the turnpike, and on to the town?