The Humorous Poetry of the English Language | Page 7

breast, till in one comfortable sneeze
The full-collected
pleasure bursts at last!
Most rare Columbus! thou shalt be for this

The only Christopher in my calendar.
Why, but for thee the uses of
the nose
Were half unknown, and its capacity
Of joy. The summer
gale that from the heath,
At midnoon glowing with the golden gorse,

Bears its balsamic odor, but provokes
Not satisfies the sense; and
all the flowers,
That with their unsubstantial fragrance tempt
And
disappoint, bloom for so short a space,
That half the year the nostrils
would keep lent,
But that the kind tobacconist admits
No winter in
his work; when Nature sleeps
His wheels roll on, and still administer

A plenitude of joy, a tangible smell.
What are Peru and those Golcondan mines
To thee, Virginia?
miserable realms,
The produce of inhuman toil, they send
Gold for
the greedy, jewels for the vain.

But thine are COMMON

comforts!...To omit
Pipe-panegyric and tobacco-praise,
Think what
a general joy the snuff-box gives,
Europe, and far above Pizarro's
name
Write Raleigh in thy records of renown!
Him let the
school-boy bless if he behold
His master's box produced, for when he
sees
The thumb and finger of authority
Stuffed up the nostrils:
when hat, head, and wig
Shake all; when on the waistcoat black,
brown dust,
From the oft-reiterated pinch profuse
Profusely
scattered, lodges in its folds,
And part on the magistral table lights,

Part on the open book, soon blown away,
Full surely soon shall then
the brow severe
Relax; and from vituperative lips
Words that of
birch remind not, sounds of praise,
And jokes that MUST be laughed
at shall proceed.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
CHARLES LAMB.
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
constrain'd 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
reclaimed lovers take

'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay
Much
too in the female way,
While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
Faster
than kisses or than death,
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,
That our worst foes can not find us,


And ill fortune, that would thwart us
Shoots at rovers, shooting at
us;
While each man, through thy height'ning 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 allowed 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.
Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou

That but by reflex canst show
What his deity can do,
As the false
Egyptian spell
Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
Some few vapors
thou may'st raise,
The weak brain may serve to amaze,
But to the
reins and nobler heart
Canst nor life nor heat impart.
Brother of
Bacchus, later born.
The old world was sure forlorn
Wanting thee,
that aidest more
The god's victories than before
All his panthers,
and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we
disallow,
Or judge of THEE meant only thou
His true Indian
conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now
weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume

Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sov'reign to the brain;

Nature, that did in thee excel,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses,
violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener
damsels meant;
Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking land,
Filth of the mouth and fog of the
mind,
Africa, that brags her foison,
Breeds no such prodigious
poison
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite---
Nay, rather,
Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
Blisters on the tongue

would hurt you.
'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee;
None e'er
prosper'd who defamed thee
Irony all, and feign'd abuse,
Such as
perplex'd lovers use,
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their
fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness

Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;

And, instead of Dearest Miss,
Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,

And those forms of old admiring,
Call her Cockatrice and Siren,

Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
Ethiop,
Wench, and Blackamoor,
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;
Friendly
Trait'ress, loving Foe--
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way
they know
A contentment to express,
Borders so upon excess,

That they do not rightly wot
Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain'd to part
With what's nearest to their heart,

While their sorrow's at the height,
Lose discrimination quite,
And
their hasty wrath let fall,
To appease their frantic gall,
On the
darling thing whatever,
Whence they feel it death to sever
Though
it be, as they, perforce,
Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it