Scorn not the meerschaum. Housewives, you have croaked
In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed
Did Milton, now and then, consume the weed;
The poet Tennyson hath oft evoked
The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked
And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;
Hawthorne with this hath cheered his solitude;
A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;
Full oft hath Aldrich, Stoddard, Taylor, Cranch,
And many more whose verses float about,