GREY SMOKE

Published in the book Smoke Rings and Roundelays:

Blendings from Prose and Verse since Raleigh's Time

1924

(page 130)

     Like the cool film that floats

          Under new-rising moons

     In little silver notes

          From wandering motes—

               The runes

               Re-echo still: their breeze calls yet:

               Mine Evenings of the Cigarette.

     Up the pine-hill one goes

          Slowly, at ease, and so

     The little Zephyr blows!

          Like cream of snows;

               I know

               Remembrance still; still no regret

               Stays me, this Hour of Cigarette.

     What day indeed was this

          That lies behind my time

     Like a gay-tremulous kiss?

          Nothing, I wis—

               A rime

               Returns to me; in lightest fret

               Floats slow above my Cigarette.

     Incense, I think; who knows

          How memory is snared

     Back? But a dim scent blows

          From some past rose—

               Some shared

               Whiff of old incense, in the net

               Anew—breath of my Cigarette.

     Victor B. Neuburg

     Contributed to this Collection (1923).