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 vapor 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.

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?  Whither 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,
  May not the Smoker hope to take
    His “cutty” from below? 
  So let us trust; and when at length
    You lay me ’neath the yew,
  Forget not, O my friends, I pray,
    Pipes and tobacco too!

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.

SWEET SMOKING PIPE.

  Sweet smoking pipe; bright glowing stove,
    Companion still of my retreat,
  Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove,
    And purge my brain with gentle heat.

  Tobacco, 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? 
    Then shew’st me what my fate will be;
  And when thy sinking ashes die,
    I learn that I must end like thee.

ANON.

CIGARETTE RINGS.

  How it blows!  How it rains!  I’ll not turn out to-night;
  I’m too sleepy to read and too lazy to write;
  So I’ll watch the blue rings, as they eddy and twirl,
  And in gossamer wreathings coquettishly curl. 
  In the stillness of night and the sparseness of chimes
  There’s a fleetness in fancy, a frolic in rhymes;
  There’s a world of romance that persistently clings
  To the azurine curving of Cigarette Rings!