’Till I felt like a player or poet, who still
Gets more happy at every puff.
And said I to myself, since mere vapour thus soothes,
Why should men their bliss ever mar?
Life’s cold spots it warms, and its rough places smoothes,
And each pleasure is but a cigar!
But—like Hope, self-consuming before its own fire—
It silently wasted away;
And I was too happy to stop to inquire
If there was such a thing as decay.