TO MY CIGAR.

Yes, social friend, I love thee well, In learned doctor's spite; Thy clouds all other clouds dispel, And lap me in delight. What though they tell, with phizzes long, My years are sooner past! I would reply with reason strong, They're sweeter while they last. When in the lonely evening hour, Attended but by thee, O'er history's varied page I pore, Man's fate in thine I see. Oft as the snowy column grows, Then breaks and falls away, I trace how mighty realms thus rose, Thus tumbled to decay. Awhile like thee earth's masters burn And smoke and fume around; And then, like thee, to ashes turn, And mingle with the ground. Life's but a leaf adroitly rolled, And Time's the wasting breath That, late or early, we behold Gives all to dusty death. From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe, One common doom is passed; Sweet Nature's works, the swelling globe, Must all burn out at last. And what is he who smokes thee now? A little moving heap, That soon, like thee, to fate must bow, With thee in dust must sleep. But though thy ashes downward go, Thy essence rolls on high; Thus, when my body lieth low, My soul shall cleave the sky.