Explore "I Smoke my Pipe" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I can't extend to every friend / In need a helping hand -- / No matter though I wish it so, / 'Tis not as Fortune planned; / But haply may I fancy they / Are men of different stripe / Than others think who hint and wink, -- / And so -- I smoke my pipe!
A golden coal to crown the bowl -- / My pipe and I alone, -- / I sit and muse with idler views / Perchance than I should own: -- / It might be worse to own the purse / Whose glutted bowels gripe / In little qualms of stinted alms; / And so I smoke my pipe.