Tobacco, Tobacco
 sing sweetly for Tobacco,
 Tobacco is like love, O love it
 for you see I wil prove it
 Love maketh leane the fatte mens tumor,
 so doth Tobacco,
 Love still dries uppe the wanton humor,
 so doth Tobacco,
 love makes men sayle from shore to shore,
 so doth Tobacco
 Tis fond love often makes men poor
 so doth Tobacco
 Love makes men scorn al Coward feares,
 so doth Tobacco
 Love often sets men by the eares
 so doth Tobacco.

 Tobaccoe, Tobaccoe
 Sing sweetely for Tobaccoe,
 Tobaccoe is like Love, O love it,
 For you see I have prowde it.

Note: from “The First Part of Ayres (or Musicall Humors)”, 1605

All the poems about smoking that I’ve been seeing on your site made me think of this one. Alas, I cannot say much about it, save that it is meant to be sung, and belongs with work by Dowland and Campion in Elizabethan (or thereabouts) England.

Why I like it: because it’s clever. It writes about all the horrible things of tobacco and love (excepting lung cancer), and yet I get the feeling that the writer is saying: “But you know you’re gonna pick up the baccy again - and Love? There’s no hope for us, mate, and ain’t that wonderful…”. He takes two of the great tragedies of human nature, love and addiction, and turns them into a source of innocent merriment for a while. I like that. Not every jewel has to be the Koh i Noor, and neither every poem an abyss hidden inside a crack in the footpath.

— Catherine

Martin adds

I was tangentially but irresistibly reminded of Kipling’s immortal line “A woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.” (And I note we’ve not run the poem yet - tomorrow is as good a time as any, I guess!)

Links

More on Mr Hume can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Hume