A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. MAY the Babylonish curse If I can a passage see (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate : For I hate, yet love, thee so, an That, whichever thing I shew, nabbed.. The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us, While each man, thro' thy height'ning steam, · And all about us does express A Sicilian fruitfulness. Thou through such a mist dost shew us, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first lov'd a cloud, Ixion. Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex can'st shew What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Brother of Bacchus, later born, These, as stale, we disallow, Scent to match thy rich perfume Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her foyson, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 'Twas but in a sort I blam'd thee; None e'er prosper'd who defam'd thee; Irony all, and feign'd abuse, Such as perplext lovers use, D 2 At a need, when, in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Which their fancies doth so strike, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Or, as men, constrain❜d to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height, Lose discrimination quite, |