A Pot, and a Pipe of Tobacco
Some praise taking snuff;
And ’tis pleasant enough
To those who have got the right knack, O!
But give me, my boys,
Those exquisite joys,
A pot, and a pipe of tobacco.
When fume follows fume
To the top of the room,
In circles pursuing their track, O!
How sweet to inhale
The health-giving gale
Of a pipe of Virginia tobacco.
Let soldiers so bold
For fame or for gold
Their enemies cut, slash, and hack, O!
We have fire and smoke,
Though all but in joke,
In a peaceable pipe of tobacco.
Should a mistress, unkind,
Be inconstant in mind,
And on your affections look black, O!
Let her wherrit and tiff,
’Twill blow off in a whiff,
If you take but a pipe of tobacco.
The miserly elf,
Who, in hoarding his pelf,
Keeps body and soul on the rack, O!
Would he bless and be blest,
He might open his chest
By taking a pipe of tobacco.
Politicians so wise,
All ears and all eyes
For news, till their addled pates crack, O!
After puzzling their brains,
Will not get for their pains
The worth of a pipe of tobacco
If your land in the claw
Of a limb of the law
You trust, or your health to a quack, O!
’Tis fifty to one
They’re both as soon gone
As you’d puff out a pipe of tobacco.
Life’s short, ’tis agreed;
So we’ll try from the weed,
Of man a brief emblem to tack, O!
When his spirit ascends,
Die he must,—and he ends
In dust, like a pipe of tobacco.
From “The Universal Songster, or Museum of Mirth.”