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, Puffed the Virginian or Havana leaf; And when the poet's or the artist's branch, Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout Consolatory whiffs, alas, too brief! |