A Pipe of Tobacco/III

by Isaac Hawkins Browne

O Thou, matur’d by glad Hesperian Suns,
Tobacco, Fountain pure of limpid Truth,
That looks the very Soul; whence pouring Thought
Swarms all the Mind; absorpt is yellow Care,
And at each Puff Imagination burns.
Flash on thy Bard, and with exalting Fires
Touch the mysterious Lip that chaunts thy Praise
In Strains to mortal Sons of Earth unknown.
Behold an Engine, wrought from tauny Mines,
Of ductile Clay, with plastic Virtue form’d,
And glaz’d magnific o’er, I grasp, I fill.
From Paetotheke with pungent Pow’rs perfum’d,
Itself one Tortoise all, where shines imbib’d
Each Parent Ray; then rudely ram’d illume,
With the red Touch of Zeal-enkindling Sheet,
Mark’d with Gibsonian Lore; forth issue Clouds,
Thought-thrilling, Thirst-inciting Clouds around,
And many-mining Fires: I all the While,
Lolling at Ease, inhale the breezy Balm.
But chief, when Bacchus went with thee to join,
In genial Strife and Orthodoxal Ale,
Stream Life and Joy into the Muses Bowl.
Oh be Thou still my great Inspirer, Thou
My Muse; Oh fan me with thy Zephyrs Boon,
While I, in clouded Tabernacle shrin’d,
Burst forth all Oracle and mystic Song.