What country gave it birth? What blest of cities Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal? What happy artist murmured, “_Nunc dimittis_,” When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl? Has it been hoarded in a monarch’s treasures? Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war? Did the great Khalif in his “House of Pleasures” Wager, and lose it to the good Zaafar? It may have soothed mild Spenser’s melancholy, While musing o’er traditions of the past, Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter Raleigh Ere sage King Jamie blew his _Counterblast_. Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern, Escape that monarch’s pipoclastic ken? Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern, Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben? Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creations Loom through its smoke—the spectre-haunted Thane, The Sisters at their ghastly invocations, The jealous Moor and melancholy Dane. ’Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets Titania may have led her elfin rout, Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets, Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out. Vain are all fancies—questions bring no answer; The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains; He were indeed a subtle necromancer Could read their records in its cloudy stains. Nor this alone: its destiny may doom it To outlive e’en its use and history— Some plowman of the future may exhume it From soil now deep beneath the Eastern sea— And, treasured by some antiquarian Stultus, It may to gaping visitors be shown, Labeled, “The symbol of some ancient Cultus, Conjecturally Phallic, but unknown.” Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel ’Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things? Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral, ὥς ψύλλων γενεή, as Homer sings? For this: Some links we forge are never broken; Some feelings claim exemption from decay; And Love, of which this pipe was but the token, Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away. THE HUMAN EAR. A sound came booming through the air— “What is that sound?” quoth I. My blue-eyed pet, with golden hair, Made answer presently, “Papa, you know it very well— That sound—it was Saint Pancras Bell.”