To all who fain would pass their days

Among old books and quiet ways,

And walk with cool, autumnal pace

The bypaths of tranquillity,

To each his own select desire,

To each his old familiar briar

And silent friend and chattering fire,

Companions in civility.

Outside the world goes rolling by,

And on the trampling and the cry

There comes the long, low mournful sigh

Of night winds roaming vagrantly;

They see too many sullen sights

This side the stars on winter nights;

A kind of hopeless Jacobites.

—This brand, indeed, smokes fragrantly.

The perfect mixture's far to seek;

Your pure Virginia, pale and meek,

Requires the passion of Perique,

The Latakian lyrics;

Perfection is the crown that flies

The reaching hands and longing eyes,

And art demands what life denies

To nicotine empirics.

Sirs, you remember Omar's choice,

Wine, verses, and his lady's voice

Making the wilderness rejoice?

It needs one more ingredient.

A boon, the Persian knew not of,

Had made to mellower music move

The lips to wine, if not to love,

A trifle too obedient.

This weed I call the "herb of grace."

My reasons are, as some one says,

"Between me and my fireplace."

Ophelia spoke of rue, you know.

"There's rue for you and there's for me,

But you must wear it differently."

Quite true, of course.—Your pipe I see

Draws hard. They sometimes do, you know.

Alas, if we in fancy's train

To drowse beside our fires are fain,

Letting the world slip by amain,

Uneager of its verities,

Our neighbours will not let us be

At peace with inutility.

They quote us maxims, two or three,

Or similar asperities.

I question not a man may bear

His still soul walled from noisy care,

And walk serene in places where

An ancient wrath is denizen;

The pilgrim's feet may know no ease,

And yet his heart's delight increase,

For all ways that are trod in peace

Lead upward to God's benison.

No less I doubt our age's need

Is some of Izaak Walton's creed.—

Your pardon, gentlemen! I breed

Impatience with a homily.—

Our flag there were a sombre type,

If every star implied a stripe.

I wish you all a wholesome pipe,

And ingle blinking bonnily.

Poor ethics these of mine, I fear,

And yet, when our green leaves and sere

Have dropped away, perhaps we'll hear

These questions answered curiously.

The battered book here on my knees?

Is Herrick, his "Hesperides."

Gold apples from the guarded trees

Are stored here not penuriously.

The poet of the gurgling phrase

And quaint conceits of elder days,

Loved holiness and primrose ways

About in equal quantities,

Wassail and yuletide, feast and fair,

Blown petticoats, a child's low prayer;

A fine, old pagan joy is there;

Some wild-rose muse's haunt it is.

Mine herb of grace, that kindred art

To all who choose "the better part,"

Grant us the old world's childlike heart,

Now grown an antique rarity!

With mayflowers on our swords and shields

We'll learn to babble of green fields

Like Falstaff, whom good humour yields

A place still in its charity.

Visions will come at times; I note

One with a cool, white, delicate throat;

Glory of names that shine remote,

From towers of high endeavouring.

Care not for these, nor care to roam,

Ulysses, o'er the beckoning foam.

"Here rest and call content our home"

Beside our fire's soft wavering.