Such often, like the tube they so admire,
Important triflers! have more smoke than fire.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society's chief joys,
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
WILLIAM COWPER.
TWO OTHER HEARTS.
Full tender beamed the light of love down from his manly face,
As he pressed her to his bosom in a fervent, fond embrace.
No cost of others' happiness found place within his thought;
The weakness of life's brittle thread no dim forebodings brought.
But tenderer than the light of love, more brittle than life's
thread,
The shrouds that wrapped two other hearts gave up their withered
dead;
For, crumbling in his waistcoat, their glowing future dashed,
Two excellent Havanas were very badly smashed.
_London Tobacco_.
THE SMOKE TRAVELLER.
When I puff my cigarette,
Straight I see a Spanish girl,--
Mantilla, fan, coquettish curl,
Languid airs and dimpled face,
Calculating, fatal grace;
Hear a twittering serenade
Under lofty balcony played;
Queen at bull-fight, naught she cares
What her agile lover dares;
She can love and quick forget.
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