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.



CHARLES SPRAGUE.