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

Charles Baudelaire was a renowned French poet, essayist, and art critic born on April 9, 1821, in Paris, France. Best known for his collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), Baudelaire profoundly influenced the Symbolist and Modernist movements. He led a controversial life, marked by financial difficulties, substance abuse, and relationships with various women. Despite a relatively short life, dying at the age of 46 on August 31, 1867, his work has had a lasting impact on both French and international literature. Baudelaire's writing is characterized by its exploration of beauty, decadence, and the human condition.

Charles Baudelaire

The Sky

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Autumn Song

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

The Digging Skeleton

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

A Carcass

Charles Baudelaire, 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.

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 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

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

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

Head Of Hair

O fleece, billowing even down the neck!
O locks! 0 perfume charged with nonchalance!
What ecstasy! To people our dark room
With memories that sleep within this mane,
I'll shake it like a kerchief in the air!

Languorous Asia, scorching Africa,
A whole world distant, vacant, nearly dead,
Lives in your depths, o forest of perfume!
While other spirits sail on symphonies
Mine, my beloved, swims along your scent.

I will go down there, where the trees and men,
Both full of sap, swoon in the ardent heat;
Strong swelling tresses, carry me away!
Yours, sea of ebony, a dazzling dream
Of sails, of oarsmen, waving pennants, masts:

A sounding harbour where my soul can drink
From great floods subtle tones, perfumes and hues;
Where vessels gliding in th...

Charles Baudelaire

A Ballade Of Montaigne

I sit before the firelight's glow
    With all the world in apogee,
And con good Master Florio
    With pipe a-light; and as I see
    Queen Bess herself with book a-knee,
Reading it o'er and o'er again,
    Here, 'neath my cosy mantel-tree,
I smoke my pipe and read Montaigne.

Now howls the wind and drives the snow;
    The traveler shivers on the lea;
While, with my precious folio,
    Behold a happy devotee
    To book and warmth and reverie!
The blast upon the window-pane
    Disturbs me not, as trouble-free,
I smoke my pipe and read Montaigne.

I am content, and thus I know
    A mind as calm as summer sea, -
A heart that stranger is to woe.
    To happiness I hold the key
    In this rare, sweet philosophy;
And while th...

Arthur Macy