The fisher ’board some little bark,
  When all around is drear and dark,
  With shortened pipe beguiles the hour,
  Though bleak the wind and cold the show’r,
  Nor thinks the morn’s approach too slow,
  Regardless of what tempests blow. 
  Midst hills of sand, midst ditches, dikes,
  Midst cannons, muskets, halberts, pikes;
  With thee, as still, Mynheer can stay,
  As Neddy ’twixt two wisps of hay;
  Heedless of Britain and of France,
  Smokes on—­and looks to the main chance.

  And sure the solace thou canst give
  Must make thy fame unrivalled live,
  So long as men can temper clay
  (For as thou art, e’en so are they),
  The sun mature the Indian weed,
  And rolling years fresh sorrows breed.

From The Meteors, London.

THE PATRIOTIC SMOKER’S LAMENT.

  Tell me, shade of Walter Raleigh,
    Briton of the truest type,
  When that too devoted valet
    Quenched your first-recorded pipe,
  Were you pondering the opinion,
    As you watched the airy coil,
  That the virtue of Virginia
    Might be bred in British soil?

  You transplanted the potato,
    ’Twas a more enduring gift
  Than the wisdom of a Plato
    To our poverty and thrift. 
  That respected root has flourished
    Nobly for a nation’s need,
  But our brightest dreams are nourished
    Ever on a foreign weed.

  From the deepest meditation
    Of the philosophic scribe,
  From the poet’s inspiration,
    For the cynic’s polished gibe,
  We invoke narcotic nurses
    In their jargon from afar,
  I indite these modest verses
    On a polyglot cigar.

  Leaf that lulls a Turkish Aga
    May a scholar’s soul renew,
  Fancy spring from Larranaga,
    History from honey-dew. 
  When the teacher and the tyro
    Spirit-manna fondly seek,
  ’Tis the cigarette from Cairo,
    Or a compound from the Greek.

  But no British-born aroma
    Is fit incense to the Queen,
  Nature gives her best diploma
    To the alien nicotine. 
  We are doomed to her ill-favor,
    For the plant that’s native grown
  Has a patriotic flavor
    Too exclusively our own.

  O my country, could your smoker
    Boast your “shag,” or even “twist,”
  Every man were mediocre
    Save the blest tobacconist! 
  He will point immortal morals,
    Make all common praises mute,
  Who shall win our grateful laurels
    With a national cheroot.

The St. James Gazette.

TO AN OLD PIPE.

Once your smoothly polished face
Nestled lightly in a case;
’Twas a jolly cosy place,

                    I surmise;

And a zealous subject blew
On your cheeks, until they grew
To the fascinating hue

                    Of her eyes.