Rudyard Kipling on Cigars

[spectrrr]

“You must choose between me and your cigar.”
Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
Fort things are running crossways, and Maggi and I
are out.

We quarreled abut Havanas - we fought o’re a good cheroot,
And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box — Let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie’s face.

Maggie is pretty to look at — Maggie’s a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There’s peas in Laraaga, ther’s calm in a Henry Clay,
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away —-

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown—
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty — grey and dour and old—
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket—
With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket.

Open the old cigar box—let me consider a while—
Here is a mild Manilla—there is a vifely smile.

Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring,
or a harem of dusky beauties fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent — comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my elelids close.