I Smoke My Pipe

I can't extend to every friend
    In need a helping hand -
No matter though I wish it so,
    'Tis not as Fortune planned;
But haply may I fancy they
    Are men of different stripe
Than others think who hint and wink, -
    And so - I smoke my pipe!

A golden coal to crown the bowl -
    My pipe and I alone, -
I sit and muse with idler views
    Perchance than I should own: -
It might be worse to own the purse
    Whose glutted bowels gripe
In little qualms of stinted alms;
    And so I smoke my pipe.

And if inclined to moor my mind
    And cast the anchor Hope,
A puff of breath will put to death
    The morbid misanthrope
That lurks inside - as errors hide
    In standing forms of type
To mar at birth some line of worth;
    And so I smoke my pipe.

The subtle stings misfortune flings
    Can give me little pain
When my narcotic spell has wrought
    This quiet in my brain:
When I can waste the past in taste
    So luscious and so ripe
That like an elf I hug myself;
    And so I smoke my pipe.

And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds
    I watch the phantom's flight,
Till alien eyes from Paradise
    Smile on me as I write:
And I forgive the wrongs that live,
    As lightly as I wipe
Away the tear that rises here;
    And so I smoke my pipe.

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

James Whitcomb Riley

Proem (AKA "Afterwhiles")

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

While The Musician Played.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

The Brook-Song

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

The Little Fat Doctor.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Smoke.

I.

O others may boast of their pleasures galore--
The miser with rapture may count o'er his store,
And some may imagine great happiness there
In the gay shining beam of Society's glare;
But best of all comforts a feller can know,
While wintry winds whistle and fast flies the snow,
Is a pipe after supper, by a bright blazing fire,
Encircled with ringlets that curl high and higher!


II.

O doctors may tell you and others declare
It'll shorten your days and your heart will impair--
That nicotine poison will flow through your veins
And nervous distraction will rack with its pains;
But what cares a feller in slippers and gown,
When wintry winds whistle and snow's pouring down,
With papers and books, and his feet near the fire,
Encircled w...

George W. Doneghy

The Pipe

I am a writer's pipe; you see
In looking at my dusky face,
Complexion of the Kaffir race,
My master makes good use of me.

When he is full of grief and gloom
I smoke as if I were a shack
With supper stewing in the back
To feed the ploughman coming home.

I cradle and enwrap his soul
Within the blue and moving net
That from my fiery mouth uncoils,

And is healing balm the rolls
To charm his weary heart, and let
His spirit rest from heavy toils.

Charles Baudelaire

Nunc Te Bacche Canam.

    'Tis done!    Henceforth nor joy nor woe
        Can make or mar my fate;
    I gaze around, above, below,
        And all is desolate.
    Go, bid the shattered pine to bloom;
        The mourner to be merry;
    But bid no ray to cheer the tomb
        In which my hopes I bury!

    I never thought the world was fair;
        That 'Truth must reign victorious';
    I knew that Honesty was rare;
        Wealth only meritorious.
    I knew that Women might deceive,
        And sometimes cared for money;
    That Lovers who in Love believe
        Find gall as well as honey.

    I knew that "wondrous Classic lore"
        Meant something most pedantic;
    That Mathematics were a bore,
        And Morals un-romantic.<...

Edward Woodley Bowling

My Corn-Cob Pipe

Men may sing of their Havanas, elevating to the stars
The real or fancied virtues of their foreign-made cigars;
But I worship Nicotina at a different sort of shrine,
And she sits enthroned in glory in this corn-cob pipe of mine.

It 's as fragrant as the meadows when the clover is in bloom;
It 's as dainty as the essence of the daintiest perfume;
It 's as sweet as are the orchards when the fruit is hanging ripe,
With the sun's warm kiss upon them--is this corn-cob pipe.

Thro' the smoke about it clinging, I delight its form to trace,
Like an oriental beauty with a veil upon her face;
And my room is dim with vapour as a church when censers sway,
As I clasp it to my bosom--in a figurative way.

It consoles me in misfortune and it cheers me in distress,
And it pr...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Best Pipe

In vain you fervently extol,
    In vain you puff, your cutty clay.
A twelvemonth smoked and black as coal,
    'Tis redolent of rank decay
And bones of monks long passed away--
    A fragrance I do not admire;
And so I hold my nose and say,
    Give me a finely seasoned briar.

Macleod, whose judgment on the whole
    Is faultless, has been led astray
To nurse a high-born meerschaum bowl,
    For which he sweetly had to pay.
Ah, let him nurse it as he may,
    Before the colour mounts much higher,
The grate shall be its fate one day.
    Give me a finely seasoned briar.

The heathen Turk of Istamboul,
    In oriental turban gay,
Delights his unbelieving soul
    With hookahs, bubbling in a way
To fill a Christian with dismay

Robert Fuller Murray

When The Old Man Smokes

In the forenoon's restful quiet,
When the boys are off at school,
When the window lights are shaded
And the chimney-corner cool,
Then the old man seeks his armchair,
Lights his pipe and settles back;
Falls a-dreaming as he draws it
Till the smoke-wreaths gather black.

And the tear-drops come a-trickling
Down his cheeks, a silver flow--
Smoke or memories you wonder,
But you never ask him,--no;
For there 's something almost sacred
To the other family folks
In those moods of silent dreaming
When the old man smokes.

Ah, perhaps he sits there dreaming
Of the love of other days
And of how he used to lead her
Through the merry dance's maze;
How he called her "little princess,"
And, to please her, used to twine
Tender wreaths ...

Paul Laurence Dunbar