The Patriotic Smoker’s Lament
Tell me, shade of Walter Raleigh,
Briton of the truest type,
When that too devoted valet
Quenched your first-recorded pipe,
Were you pondering the opinion,
As you watched the airy coil,
That the virtue of Virginia
Might be bred in British soil?
You transplanted the potato,
’Twas a more enduring gift
Than the wisdom of a Plato
To our poverty and thrift.
That respected root has flourished
Nobly for a nation’s need,
But our brightest dreams are nourished
Ever on a foreign weed.
From the deepest meditation
Of the philosophic scribe,
From the poet’s inspiration,
For the cynic’s polished gibe,
We invoke narcotic nurses
In their jargon from afar,
I indite these modest verses
On a polyglot cigar.
Leaf that lulls a Turkish Aga
May a scholar’s soul renew,
Fancy spring from Larranaga,
History from honey-dew.
When the teacher and the tyro
Spirit-manna fondly seek,
’Tis the cigarette from Cairo,
Or a compound from the Greek.
But no British-born aroma
Is fit incense to the Queen,
Nature gives her best diploma
To the alien nicotine.
We are doomed to her ill-favor,
For the plant that’s native grown
Has a patriotic flavor
Too exclusively our own.
O my country, could your smoker
Boast your “shag,” or even “twist,”
Every man were mediocre
Save the blest tobacconist!
He will point immortal morals,
Make all common praises mute,
Who shall win our grateful laurels
With a national cheroot.
The St. James Gazette.