FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   >>  
And stout ones for Havanas dreamy. This cricket, on an amber spear Impaled, recalls that golden weather When love and I, too young to fear Heartburn, smoked cigarettes together. And even now--too old to take The little papered shams for flavor-- I light it oft for her sweet sake Who gave it, with her girlish favor. And here's the mighty student bowl Whose tutoring in and after college Has led me nearer wisdom's goal Than all I learned of text-book knowledge. "It taught me?" Ay, to hold my tongue, To keep a-light, and yet burn slowly, To break ill spells around me flung As with the enchanted whiff of Moly. This nargileh, whose hue betrays Perique from soft Louisiana, In Egypt once beguiled the days Of Tewfik's dreamy-eyed Sultana. Speaking of color,--do you know A maid with eyes as darkly splendid As are the hues that, rich and slow, On this Hungarian bowl have blended? Can artist paint the fiery glints Of this quaint finger here beside it, With amber nail,--the lustrous tints, A thousand Partagas have dyed it? "And this old silver patched affair?" Well, sir, that meerschaum has its reasons For showing marks of time and wear; For in its smoke through fifty seasons My grandsire blew his cares away! And then, when done with life's sojourning, At seventy-five dropped dead one day, That pipe between his set teeth burning! "Killed him?" No doubt! it's apt to kill In fifty year's incessant using-- Some twenty pipes a day. And still, On that ripe, well-filled, lifetime musing, I envy oft so bright a part,-- To live as long as life's a treasure; To die of--not an aching heart, But--half a century of pleasure! Well, well! I'm boring you, no doubt; How these old memories will undo one-- I see you've let your weed go out; That's wrong! Here, light yourself a new one! CHARLES F. LUMMIS. ODE TO TOBACCO. Thou, who when fears attack Bidst them avaunt, and Black Care, at the horseman's back Perching, unseatest; Sweet when the morn is gray; Sweet when they've cleared away Lunch; and at close of day Possibly sweetest! I have a liking old For thee, though manifold Stories, I know, are told Not to thy credit: How one (or two at most) Drops make a cat a ghost,-- Useless, except
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   >>  



Top keywords:

dreamy

 

aching

 

bright

 

lifetime

 

musing

 

treasure

 

filled

 

seventy

 

dropped

 

sojourning


grandsire
 

incessant

 

twenty

 
Killed
 

burning

 

cleared

 

Possibly

 

liking

 
sweetest
 

horseman


Perching

 

unseatest

 
Useless
 

Stories

 

manifold

 
credit
 

avaunt

 

memories

 

pleasure

 

century


boring
 

attack

 
TOBACCO
 
CHARLES
 

LUMMIS

 

nearer

 

wisdom

 

college

 

mighty

 

student


tutoring
 

learned

 

tongue

 

slowly

 
knowledge
 

taught

 

girlish

 

weather

 

golden

 
recalls