I have a liking old For thee, though manifold Stories, I know, are told, Not to thy credit; How one (or two at most) Drops make a cat a ghost— Useless, except to roast— Doctors have said it:
How they who use fusees All grow by slow degrees Brainless as chimpanzees, Meagre as lizards; Go mad, and beat their wives; Plunge (after shocking lives) Razors and carving-knives Into their gizzards.
Confound such knavish tricks! Yet know I five or six Smokers who freely mix Still with their neighbors; Jones—(who, I 'm glad to say, Asked leave of Mrs. J.)— Daily absorbs a clay After his labors.
Cats may have had their goose Cooked by tobacco-juice; Still why deny its use Thoughtfully taken? We're not as tabbies are: Smith, take a fresh cigar! Jones, the tobacco-jar! Here's to thee, Bacon!
CHARLES S. CALVERLEY.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
May the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind (Still the phrase is wide or scant), To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate; For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrained hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine! Bacchus' black servant, negro fine! Sorcerer! that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimèd lovers take 'Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay Much, too, in the female way, While thou suck'st the laboring breath Faster than kisses, or than death.
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us, Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; While each man, through thy heightening steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem; And all about us does express (Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowèd features Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell chimeras, Monsters,—that who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.