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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
I SMOKE MY PIPE, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I can't extend to every friend Last Line: And so I smoke my pipe. Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F. Subject(s): Fortune; Heaven; Leisure; Smoking; Paradise; Tobacco; Pipes; Cigars; Cigarettes | |||
I can't extend to every friend In need a helping hand -- No matter though I wish it so, 'Tis not as Fortune planned; But haply may I fancy they Are men of different stripe Than others think who hint and wink, -- And so -- I smoke my pipe! A golden coal to crown the bowl -- My pipe and I alone, -- I sit and muse with idler views Perchance than I should own: -- It might be worse to own the purse Whose glutted bowels gripe In little qualms of stinted alms; And so I smoke my pipe. And if inclined to moor my mind And cast the anchor Hope, A puff of breath will put to death The morbid misanthrope That lurks inside -- as errors hide In standing forms of type To mar at birth some line of worth; And so I smoke my pipe. The subtle stings misfortune flings Can give me little pain When my narcotic spell has wrought This quiet in my brain: When I can waste the past in taste So luscious and so ripe That like an elf I hug myself; And so I smoke my pipe. And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds, I watch the phantom's flight, Till alien eyes from Paradise Smile on me as I write: And I forgive the wrongs that live, As lightly as I wipe Away the tear that rises here; And so I smoke my pipe. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON CHANEL NO. 5 by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR OLD MEN ON THE COURTHOUSE LAWN, MURRAY, KENTUCKY by JAMES GALVIN DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 2. LOS CIGARILLOS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON A BOY'S MOTHER by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY |
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