“Je tiens cette maxime utile,
De ce fameux Monsieur de Crac,
En campagne comme à la ville,
Font tous l’amour et le tabac,
Quand ce grand homme allait en guerre
Il portait dans son petit sac,
Le doux portrait de sa bergère,
Avec la pipe de tabac.”
In the accompanying English version, they are thus imitated:—
See, content, the soldier smiling
Round the vet’ran smoking crew
And the tar, the time beguiling,
Sighs and whiffs, and thinks of Sue.
Calm the bosom; naught distresses;—
Labour’s harvest’s nearly ripe;—
‘Susan’s health;’—the brim he presses,—
Here alone he quits his pipe.
Faithful still to every duty
Ne’er his faithful heart will roam;
Mines of wealth, and worlds of beauty,
Tempt him not from Susan’s home.
From his breast—wherever steering,
Oft a sudden tear to wipe,
Susan’s portrait,—sorrow cheering,
First he draws—and then his pipe!
Our immortal Byron, in his poem of “The Island,” sings thus the praises of “the Indian weed:”—
Sublime tobacco!—which from east to west
Cheers the tar’s labours, or the Turkman’s rest;
Which on the Moslem’s ottoman divides
His hours,—and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe
When tipped with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far,
Thy naked beauties—— Give me a cigar!
If, Sir, you should deem this communication worthy of your notice, I shall feel inclined to pursue my researches farther; and, whatever the result, allow me in the mean time to subscribe myself,
Your well-wisher,
Fumo.
P. S. Should you, Sir, burn this, the Roman adage, which I have used as my motto, will be once more verified.