sentimental subjects I'm a Philistine and cynic,
And prefer the inspiration drawn from sources nicotinic.

So I sing of you, dear product of (I trust you are) Havana,
And if there's any question as to how my verses scan, a
Reason is my shyness in the Muses' aid invoking,
As, like other ancient maidens, they perchance object to smoking.

I have learnt with you the wisdom of contemplative quiescence,
While the world is in a ferment of unmeaning effervescence,
That its jar and rush and riot bring no good one-half so sterling
As your fleecy clouds of fragrance that are now about me curling.

So, let stocks go up or downward, and let politicians wrangle,
Let the parsons and philosophers grope in a wordy tangle,
Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars,
Be millionnaires or magnates, or senators or scholars.

I will puff my mild Havana, and I quietly will query,
Whether, when the strife is over, and the combatants are weary,
Their gains will be more brilliant than its faint expiring flashes,
Or more solid than this panful of its dead and sober ashes.

ARTHUR W. GUNDRY.

TO C.F. BRADFORD.

_ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE._

The pipe came safe, and welcome, too,
As anything must be from you;
A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light
As she the girls called Amphitrite.
Mixture divine of foam and clay,
From both it stole the best away:
Its foam is such as crowns the glow
Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot;
Its clay is but congested lymph
Jove chose to make some choicer nymph;
And here combined,--why, this must be
The birth of some enchanted sea,
Shaped to immortal form, the type
And very Venus of a pipe.

When high I heap it with the weed
From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed
Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore
And cast upon Virginia's shore,
I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl
And wise alembic of thy soul,
With herbs far-sought that shall distil,
Not fumes to slacken thought and will,
But bracing essences that nerve
To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.

When curls the smoke in eddies soft,
And hangs a shifting dream aloft,
That gives and takes, though chance-designed,
The impress of the dreamer's mind,
I'll think,--So let the vapors bred
By passion, in the heart or head,
Pass off and upward into space,
Waving farewells of tenderest grace,
Remembered in some happier time,