Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SNUFF-TAKER, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SNUFF-TAKER, by                    
First Line: With melancholy gaze fixed on the distant sails, the poor old crone
Last Line: Thereof. Two sous for the eucharist and two to spend for snuff.
Subject(s): Life; Love; Regret


With melancholy gaze fixed on the distant sails, the poor old crone inhales the
pinch that comfort gives, and, as her snuff she sniffs, inhales the breeze as
well, breathes the offing and the spray and all the memories sere in ocean's
depths that dwell, the love she cherished once, lulled to rest its weeds among,
her smoke-dried mariner who has gone to Davy Jones.

Ah, the snuff, the pungent air, titillate all her soul and a vanished time
recall, deep in her life entombed, the memory of a day drowned in the depth of
days, the day the plighted pair, robust beneath the ribbons, among their wedding
guests, seated and drinking sweet, the open snuff-box passed, an heirloom of
their race, wrought from the fragrant wood by a carver of figureheads.

All that her life has known is regret and bitterness, yet the first of Fortune's
smarts, the husband self-immersed, children that had no hearts! To be beaten,
sweet it is when one loves the hand that smites, . . . by a husband, by a son,
but by one's own flesh and blood. 'Tis still sweet, it is they! But how when
they are gone? If prayer like arid sand is only bitterness to the mouth, all
creased and lined from too much praying God, then little human means come to
bring consolation, tobacco by the waves: old memories . . . she sniffs.

Ah, my God! 'Tis sweet to rest, crinkling her nose in dream, her poor old-
woman's nose that formerly was fair, and to be borne away upon the wings that
spread from out the ancient brain cased in that scarred, gray head. Here she
received a blow from her grown son, ah, ya-yaie! there from her wedded spouse,
the temple was his choice, there from Marie-Annette, so big, her littlest one!
and there from Marie-Jean, the child she loved the best.

And then, what would you have? What to do beneath the sun? Gather the slimy
help? 'Twere better far to beg. For whom then should one keep one's dignity
antique? 'Tis not for the good God who has left you thus alone. Two sous, three
sous, four sous, that in your basket toss Parisian demi-mondes in the good
months, toil's reward. Slight wind-falls such as these, one knows the end
thereof. Two sous for the Eucharist and two to spend for snuff.





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