Judy (1873).

THE TRUE LEUCOTHOE.

  Let others praise the god of wine,
    Or Venus, love, and beauty’s smile;
  I choose a theme not less divine,—­
    The plant that grows in Cuba’s Isle.

  The old Greeks err’d who bound with bays
    Apollo’s brow; the verdant crown
  He wore, when measuring their days,
    Grew in the West, where he went down.

  An idle tale they also told;
    They said he gave them frankincense,
  Borne by some tree he loved of old;
    If so, he gave a mere pretence.

  For the true offspring of his love—­
    Tobacco—­grew far o’er the sea,
  Where Leucothoe from above
    Led him as honey leads the bee,

  Till on that plant he paus’d to gaze
    Some moments ere he held his way,
  And cheer her with his warmest rays,
    Heedless of time or length of day.

  Then with a sigh his brows he wreath’d
    With leaves that care and toil beguile,
  And bless’d, as their perfume he breath’d,
    The plant that grows in Cuba’s Isle.

ANON.

THOSE ASHES.

  Up to the frescoed ceiling
    The smoke of my cigarette
  In a sinuous spray is reeling,
    Forming flower and minaret.

  What 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!”

R.K.  MUNKITTRICK.

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.

H.L.

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.