A Pipe of Tobacco
Let the learned talk of books,
The glutton of cooks,
The lover of Celia’s soft smack—O!
No mortal can boast
So noble a toast
As a pipe of accepted tobacco.
Let the soldier for fame,
And a general’s name,
In battle get many a thwack—O!
Let who will have most,
Who will rule the rooste,
Give me but a pipe of tobacco.
Tobacco gives wit
To the dullest old cit,
And makes him of politics crack—O!
The lawyers i’ the hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.
The man whose chief glory
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack—O!
Between ever heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.
The doctor who places
Much skill in grimaces,
And feels your pulse running tic-tack—O!
Would you know his chief skill?
It is only to fill
And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.
The courtiers alone
To this weed are not prone;
Would you know what ’tis makes them so slack—O?
’Twas because it inclined
To be honest the mind,
And therefore they banished tobacco.
HENRY FIELDING.
Friend of my youth, companion of my later days.
What needs my Muse to sing thy various praise?
In country or in town, on land or sea,
The weed is still delightful company.
In joy or sorrow, grief or racking pain,
We fly to thee for solace once again.
Delicious plant, by all the world consumed,
’Tis pity thou, like man, to ashes too art doom’d.
ANON.
Tobacco, some say, is a potent narcotic,
That rules half the world in a way quite despotic;
So, to punish him well for his wicked and merry tricks,
We’ll burn him forthwith, as they used to do heretics.