Pipe Song

Care is all stuff:--
    Puff! Puff!
To puff is enough:--
    Puff! Puff
More musky than snuff,
And warm is a puff:--
    Puff! Puff
Here we sit mid our puffs,
Like old lords in their ruffs,
Snug as bears in their muffs:--
    Puff! Puff
Then puff, puff, puff,
For care is all stuff,
Puffed off in a puff--
    Puff! Puff!

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. His most famous work, Moby-Dick, was published in 1851 and initially was not a commercial success. Melville's writing draws on his experiences at sea, philosophical musings, and criticisms of society. While he died in relative obscurity, his reputation grew significantly in the 20th century, and he is now considered one of America’s greatest writers. Melville’s other works include Typee, White-Jacket, and Billy Budd.

Herman Melville

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The Enviable Isles

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

Marlena

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

Pebbles

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

English

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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

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 wo...

James Whitcomb Riley

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

Yer Old Cob Pipe.

I.

When the chilling winds of Winter come a-knocking at the door,
And the fleecy flakes are flying and the earth is covered o'er,
And you've supped on sweet potatoes and a 'possum frosted ripe,
Then glory hallelujah! Git yer
                                    Old
                                            Cob
                                                    Pipe!


II.

When the fire is blazing brightly and the room is snug and warm,
And you've left your cares and troubles on the outside with the storm,
And your natural leaf is colored with a golden yellow stripe,
Then glory hallelujah! Git yer
                                    Old
                                            Cob
                                                    Pipe!

George W. Doneghy

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

Herba Santa

I
After long wars when comes release
Not olive wands proclaiming peace
Can import dearer share
Than stems of Herba Santa hazed
In autumn's Indian air.
Of moods they breathe that care disarm,
They pledge us lenitive and calm.

II
Shall code or creed a lure afford
To win all selves to Love's accord?
When Love ordained a supper divine
For the wide world of man,
What bickerings o'er his gracious wine!
Then strange new feuds began.

Effectual more in lowlier way,
Pacific Herb, thy sensuous plea
The bristling clans of Adam sway
At least to fellowship in thee!
Before thine altar tribal flags are furled,
Fain wouldst thou make one hearthstone of the world.

III
To scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod--
Yea, sodden laborers ...

Herman Melville