I owe to smoking, more or less, Through life the whole of my success; With my cigar I’m sage and wise―― Without, I’m dull as cloudy skies. When smoking all my ideas soar, When not, they sink upon the floor. The greatest men have all been smokers, And so were all the greatest jokers. Then ye who’d bid adieu to care, Come here and smoke it into air! ――――:o:―――― THE CIGARETTE. I sing the song of the cigarette, The nineteenth century dudelet’s pet; With its dainty white overcoat, Prithee, now, make a note, How your affections entangled get. The Machiavelian power I sing, Of the stealthy, insidious, treacherous thing. What odours unpleasant our nostrils fret! That subtle aroma we ne’er forget. But wherefore complain of it? Spite of the pain of it, We, too, indulge in our cigarette. The skeletonizing power I sing, Of the mind-paralyzing, perfidious thing. Shades of the past, that linger yet! Is there no land where laws beset Those who lay sense aside, Puffing slow suicide, Into themselves from a cigarette? Thither I’d fly, and for ever sing The praise of the land that is free from the thing. From the various gamins the slums beget To the gilded youth with the coronet, All of them play with it, Seemingly gay with it, Taking slow death through a cigarette. The invasive, intrusive, odoriferous thing Its power autocratic I sadly sing. What sinner without and beyond the pale Of civilization, began to inhale, Sealing his own sad fate, Telling us, oh, too late! Gibbering lunacy ends the tale. Husky my voice, I must cease to sing, I’m puffing, myself, at the poisonous thing. _The Judge._ [Illustration] SNUFF: AN INSPIRATION. The pungent, nose-refreshing weed, Which, whether pulverised it gain A speedy passage to the brain, Or, whether touched with fire, it rise In circling eddies to the skies, Does thought more quicken and refine Than all the breath of all the Nine. WILLIAM COWPER. ―――― SGANARELLE, _tenant une tabatière_:――