Pipe and Pouch Part 14

CANNON SONG.

Come, seniors, come, and fill your pipes, Your richest incense raise; Let's take a smoke, a parting smoke, For good old by-gone days!

_Chorus_. For good old by-gone days, We'll smoke for good old by-gone days!

We'll take a smoke, a parting smoke, For good old by-gone days!

We'll crown the cannon with a cloud, We'll celebrate its praise; Recalling _its_ old parting smoke, For good old by-gone days!

We'll smoke to these we leave behind In devious college ways; We'll smoke to songs we've sung before, In good old by-gone days.

We'll smoke to _Alma Mater's_ name; She loves the cloud we raise!

For well she knows the "biggest guns"

Are in the coming days!

We'll smoke the times, the good old times, When we were called _fire_!

Their light shall blaze in memory, Till the lamp of life expire!

Then let each smoking pipe be broke,-- Hurrah for coming days!

We'll take a march, a merry march, To meet the coming days!

H.P. PECK.

TOBACCO.

The Indian weed, withered quite, Green at noon, cut down at night, Shows thy decay; all flesh is hay, Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.

The pipe that is so lily-white, Shows thee to be a mortal wight; And even such, gone with a touch, Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high, Thinke thou beholdst the vanity Of worldly stuffe, gone with a puffe, Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within, Think on thy soule defil'd with sin, And then the fire it doth require.

Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.

The ashes that are left behind, May serve to put thee still in mind, That unto dust return thou must.

Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco.

GEORGE WITHER, 1620.

VIRGINIA'S KINGLY PLANT.

_BY AN "OLD SALT."_

Oh, muse! grant me the power (I have the will) to sing How oft in lonely hour, When storms would round me lower, Tobacco's proved a king!

Philanthropists, no doubt With good intentions ripe, Their dogmas may put out, And arrogantly shout The evils of the pipe.

Kind moralists, with tracts, Opinions fine may show; Produce a thousand facts,-- How ill tobacco acts Man's system to o'erthrow.

Learn'd doctors have employed Much patience, time, and skill, To prove tobacco cloyed With acrid alkaloid, With power the nerves to kill.

E'en popes have curst the plant; Kings bade its use to cease; But all the pontiff's rant And royal James's cant Ne'er made its use decrease.

Teetotalers may stamp And roar at pipes and beer; But place them in a swamp, When nights are dark and damp,-- Their tunes would change, I fear.

No advocate am I Of excess in one or t'other, And ne'er essayed to try In wine to drown a sigh, Or a single care to smother.

Yet, in moderation pure, A gla.s.s is well enough; But a troubled heart to cure, Kind feelings to insure, Give me a cheerful puff.

How oft a learn'd divine His sermons will prepare, Not by imbibing wine, But 'neath th' influence fine Of a pipe of "baccy" rare!

How many a pleasing scene, How many a happy joke, How many a satire keen, Or problem sharp, has been Evolved or born of smoke!

How oft amidst the jar, Of storms on ruin bent, On shipboard, near or far, To the drenched and shiv'ring tar, Tobacco's solace lent!

Oh, tell me not 'tis bad, Or that it shortens life!

Its charms can soothe the sad, And make the wretched glad, In trouble and in strife.

'Tis used in every clime, By all men, high and low; It is praised in prose and rhyme, And can but end with time; So let the kind herb grow!

'Tis a friend to the distress'd; 'Tis a comforter in need; It is social, soothing, blest; It has fragrance, force, and zest; Then hail the kingly weed!

ANON.

TOO GREAT A SACRIFICE.

The maid, as by the papers doth appear, Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear, To test Lothario's pa.s.sion, simply said, "Forego the weed before we go to wed.

For smoke, take flame; I'll be that flame's bright fanner.

To have your Anna, give up your Havana."

But he, when thus she brought him to the scratch, Lit his cigar, and threw away his match.

ANON.