On Tobacco

What horrid sin condemn'd the teeming Earth,
And curst her womb with such a monstrous Birth?
What Crime America, that Heav'n would please
To make thee Mother of the World's disease?
In thy fair Womb what accidents could breed,
What Plague give root to this pernicious Weed?
Tobacco! Oh, the very name doth kill,
And has already fox't my 'reeling Quill:
I now could write Libels against the King,
Treason; or Blasphemy; or any thing
'Gainst Piety, and Reason; I could frame
A Panegyre to the Protector's Name:
Such sly infiction does the World infuse
Into the Soul of ev'ry modest Muse,
What politick Peregrine was't first could boast,
He bought a Pest into his native Coast?
[…]Th' abstract of Poyson in a stinking Weed,
[…]The spurious Issue of corrupted Seed;
& belch't in Earthquakes from the dark Abyss,
Whose Name a blot in Nature's Herbal is.
What drunken Fiend taught English-men the Crime,
Thus to puff out, and spawl away their time?
Pernicious Weed (should not my Muse offend,
To say Heav'n made ought for a cruel end.)
[…] should proclaim that thou created wer't,
To ruin Man's high, and immortal part.
Thy Stygyan damp obscures our Reason's Eye,
Debauches Wit, and makes Invention dry;
Destroys the Memory, confounds our Care;
We know not what we do, or what we are:
Renders our Faculties, and Members lame
To ev'ry office of our Country's claim.
Our Life's a drunken Dream devoy'd of Sense,
And the best Actions of our time offence.
Our Health, Diseases, Lethargies, and Rhume,
Our Friendship's Fire, and all our Vows are Fume
Of late there's no such things as Wit, or Sense,
Councel, Instruction, or Intelligence:
Discourse that should distinguish Man from Beast
Is by the vapour of this Weed supprest;
For what we talk is interrupted stuff,
The one half English, and the other Puff:
Freedom, and Truth are things we do not know
We know not what we say, nor what we do:
We want in all, the Understanding's light,
We talk in Clouds, and walk in endless Night.
We smoke, as if we meant conceal'd by spell
To spy abroad, yet be invisible:
But no discovery shall the Statesman boast,
We raise a mist wherein our selves are lost,
A stinking shade, and whilst we pipe it thus,
Each one appears an Ignis fatuus.
Courtier, and Pesant, nay the Madam Nice
Is likewise fall'n into the common Vice,
We all in dusky Error groping lye,
Rob'd of our Reasons, and the days bright Eye.
Whilst Sailers from the Main-top see our Isle
Wrapt up in Smoak, like the Aetnean Pile.
What nameless Ill does its Contagion shrow'd
In the dark Mantle of this noisom Cloud?
Sure 'tis the Devil: Oh, I know that's it,
Foh! How the Sulphur makes me Cough and Spit?
'Tis he; or else some Fav'rit Feind at least,
In all the Mischief of his Malice drest;
Each deadly Sin that lurks t'intrap the Soul;
Does here conceal'd in curling Vapours rowl.
And for the Body such an unknown ill,
As makes Physitians reading, and their skill:
One undistinguisht Pest made up of all
That Men experienc'd do Diseases call.
Coughs, Astma's, Apoplexies, Fevers, Rhume,
All that kill dead; or lingeringly consume;
Folly, and Madness, nay the Plague, the Pox,
And ev'ry Fool wears a Pandora's Box.
From that rich Mine, the stupid Sot doth fill,
Smokes up his Liver, and his Lungs, until
His reeking Nostrils monstr' ously proclaim,
His Brains, and Bowels are consuming Flame.
What noble Soul would be content to dwell
In the dark Lanthorn of a smoky Cell?
To prostitute his Body, and his Mind,
To a Debauch of such a Stinking kind?
To sacrifice to Molech, and to fry,
In such a base, dirty Idolatry;
As if frail life, which of its self's too short,
Were to be whift away in drunken sport.
Thus, as if weary of our destin'd years,
We burn the Thread so to prevent the Shears.
What noble end, can simple Man propose
For a reward to his all-smoking Nose?
His purposes are levell'd sure amiss,
Where neither Ornament, nor Pleasure is.
What can he then design his worthy hire?
Sure 'tis t'innure him for eternal fire:
And thus his aim must admirably thrive,
In hopes of Hell, he damns himself alive.
But my infected Muse begins to choke,
In the vile stink of the encreasing Smoke,
And can no more in equal numbers chime,
Unless to sneeze, and cough, and spit in Rythme.
Half stifled now in this new times Disease,
She must in fumo vanish, and decease.
This is her faults excuse, and her pretence,
This Satyr, perhaps, else had lookt like Sense.