And when, with one accord, round the jovial board,
    In friendship our bosoms are glowing,
  While with toast and with song we the evening prolong,
    And with nectar the goblets are flowing;
  Still let us puff, puff,—­be life smooth, be it rough,
    Such enjoyment we’re ever in lack o’;
  The more peace and good-will will abound as we fill
    A jolly good pipe of tobacco.

JOHN USHER.

EPITAPH

ON A YOUNG LADY WHO DESIRED THAT TOBACCO MIGHT BE PLANTED OVER HER GRAVE.

  Let no cold marble o’er my body rise—­
  But only earth above, and sunny skies. 
  Thus would I lowly lie in peaceful rest,
  Nursing the Herb Divine from out my breast. 
  Green let it grow above this clay of mine,
  Deriving strength from strength that I resign. 
  So in the days to come, when I’m beyond
  This fickle life, will come my lovers fond,
  And gazing on the plant, their grief restrain
  In whispering, “Lo! dear Anna blooms again!”

THE SMOKER’S REVERIE.

(OCTOBER.)

  I’m sitting at dusk ’neath the old beechen tree,
  With its leaves by the autumn made ripe;
  While they cling to the stems like old age unto life,
  I dream of the days when I’ll rest from this strife,
    And in peace smoke my brierwood pipe.

  O my brierwood pipe!—­of bright fancy the twin,
    What a medley of forms you create;
  Every puff of white smoke seems a vision as fair
  As the poet’s bright dream, and like dreams fades in air,
    While the dreamer dreams on of his fate.

  The fleecy white clouds that now float in the sky,
    Form the visions I love most to see;
  Fairy shapes that I saw in my boyhood’s first dreams
  Seem to beckon me on, while beyond them there gleams
    A bright future, in waiting for me.

  O my brierwood pipe!  I ne’er loved thee as now,
    As that fair form and face steal above;
  See, she beckons me on to where roses are spread,
  And she points to my fancy the bright land ahead,
    Where the winds whisper nothing but love.

  Oh, answer, my pipe, shall my dream be as fair
    When it changes to dreams of the past? 
  When autumn’s chill winds make this leaf look as sere
  As the leaves on the beech-tree that shelters me here,
    Will the tree’s heart be chilled by the blast?

  While musing, around me has gathered a heap
    Of the leaflets, all dying and dead;
  And I see in my reverie plainly revealed
  The slope of life’s hill, in my boyhood concealed
    By the forms that fair fancy had bred.

  While I sit on the banks of the beautiful stream,
    Picking roses that bloom by its side,
  I know that the shallop will certainly come,
  When the roses are withered, to carry me home,
    And that life will go out with the tide.