At midnight hour, as bedroom-ward Two “undergrads” from drinking hard, Steered up the gas-less break-neck stair, A voice cried from the “right two-pair,” Tobacco smoke! The Freshman by his scout was found, Lying all prone upon the ground, And still his hand grasped like a vice The “baccy”-pouch with strange device, Tobacco smoke! There, in the morning cold and gray, Moaning, and all unkempt, he lay, And then the scout, unmoved, serene―― Said――“Oh! ’tis easy to be seen, Tobacco smoke!” R. C. From _College Rhymes_. Part XVI., 1864. ―――― _The Song of Firewater_, a parody of Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” appeared in _Cope’s Tobacco Plant_ for November, 1871. The poem relates to snuff, but as it extends to over 200 lines it cannot be inserted here. It commences thus:―― Should you ask me whence this story? Whence this legend and tradition? I should answer, I should tell you, From the lips of Blow-me-tite-o; Blow-me-tite-o, sweetest singer, Singer of the mournful ditties. * * * * * ―――― THE SONG OF NICOTINE. Should you ask me why this meerschaum, Why these clay-pipes and churchwardens, With the odours of tobacco, With the oil and fume of “mixture,” With the curling smoke of “bird’s eye,” With the gurgling of rank juices, With renewed expectorations As of sickness on the fore-deck? I should answer, I should tell you, From the cabbage, and the dust-heaps, From the old leeks of the Welshland, From the soil of kitchen gardens, From the mud of London sewers, From the garden-plots and churchyards, Where the linnet and cock-sparrow Feed upon the weeds and groundsel, I receive them as I buy them From the boxes of Havana, The concoctor, the weird wizard. Should you ask how this Havana Made cigars so strong and soothing, Made the “bird’s eye,” and “York-river,” I should answer, I should tell you, In the purlieus of the cities, In the cellars of the warehouse, In the dampness of the dungeon, Lie the rotten weeds that serve him; In the gutters and the sewers, In the melancholy alleys, Half-clad Arab boys collect them, Crossing-sweepers bring them to him, Costermongers keep them for him, And he turns them by his magic Into “cavendish” and “bird’s-eye,” For those clay-pipes and churchwardens, For this meerschaum, or he folds them, And “cigars” he duly labels On the box in which he sells them. From _Figaro_. October 7, 1874. ―――― LINES TO THE “ANTI-TOBACCO JOURNAL.” Tell me not in penny numbers Smoking’s but a loathsome dream; Worse than onions and cucumbers, Though they be chawed up like steam!