MY PIPE.
I do not now attempt to sing,
With laudatory phrases,
That now, in verse, quite hackneyed thing,
Which poet, painter praises:
Beloved by Turner, Claude, or Cuyp,
The excellent tobacco-pipe.
Nor yet of bagpipes do I write,
Pan's pipes with Punch and Judy,
Or organ ones, because you might
Read books on them, from Mudie,
In varied tongues, in varied type—
On any sort of music pipe.
Nor, plagued of late however much
By bronchial affections,
Do I propose just now to touch,
With medical reflections,
On what Jack Frost delights to gripe,
My choking, wheezing, sore wind-pipe,
Nor am I speaking now of wine,
Nor yet, from Marryat learning,
Of what the Cockney would define—
Poor A as ever spurning—
"The sime in nime, but not in shipe,"
The pipe of port; the boatswain's pipe.
No! Now I sing—but not with praise,
To praise it would be rummer
Than any other sort of craze,
Excepting in a plumber;
I am not such a fool, a "snipe,"
As says the Bard—my water-pipe.
For weeks I could not get a drop
Of water, it was frozen;
When thus congealed the thing would stop,
I spoke as would a boatswain.
For seamen's oaths the time was ripe,
I here translate them—Hang that pipe!
Then suddenly, of course at night,
There came a sudden splashing,
And I, in most unequal fight,
About my bedroom dashing,
With sheets and towels tried to wipe,
Or check, the flood from that vile pipe.
You would not say that frost is fine,
So exquisitely bracing,
If you had had a pipe like mine,
Your ruined home defacing;
On carpet, stain; on paper, stripe;—
Oh, blow that beastly water-pipe!
Song of the Peace Terms (Sung To China).—"Oh, Let us be Jappy together!"
