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• Full of smoke was the queer old room
• And of pleasant winter-heat;
• Whence you might hear the hall-doors slap,
• And the wary shuffling of feet
• Which from the carpeted floor stept out
• Into the ice-paved street.

• Van Hunks was laughing in his paunch:
• Five silver pieces fair
• Lay in his hand. With neighbour Spratz
• 10 He had smoked for a wager there;
• He laughed, and from his neighbour's pipe
• He looked to his neighbour's chair.

• And while he laughed, the evening shades
• Grew stealthily and spread;
• Till the smoky clouds walled up the sun
• And hid his shiny old head,
• As though he too had his evening pipe
• Before he tumbled to bed.

• Then And once more from the bowl the smoke
• 20 Blew in a Twisted a silver chain,
• Just like the thoughts a drowsy poet's thoughts
• That jostle in his brain,
• Quarreling each for the precedence,
• And none to be found again.

• “ Ah! I forgot Aha he said! my pipe's worn out—
• You're seasoned—you'll just do.”
• Then He flung him into a gang of fiends,
• Black, yellow, red & blue:
• “ Here's a pi I've brought a pipe for my private use,
• Just trim it, some of you!”

• They've sliced the very crown from his head,
• (Worse shaving than a monk's),
• Lopped arms & legs, stuck a red-hot tube
• In his wretchedest of trunks;
• And when the Devil wants a pipe
• They bring him Jan Van Hunks.

• One by one the hours went on
• As the clock gave them out,
• Till the tongue of the midnight bell was loosed
• With a timid kind of shout,
• As knowing it would be bullied and jeered
• 30 By the echoes thereabout.

• Van Hunks was fond of the mid-night bell,
• It caused him a secret grin,
• When shutter and blind shook in the wind
• With that teeth-chattering din,
• To fancy the many that froze without
• While he sat was thawing within.

• “These thirty years,” then said Van Hunks,
• “I have smoked both night & day;
• But of all the wagers on my pipe
• 40 Had never a doit to pay,
• For still in the end my vapouring foe
• Has sickly sneaked away.

• “Ah! could I still find any one
• Who knew me not too well
• And worthy o try his chance with me
• After the midnight bell,
• He should be welcome, though he come
• From the smoking-crib of Hell!”

• His words had scarcely ceased,—his breath
• 50 Still mingling with the smoke,—

• The chamber-window stood to the street,
• With shutters strongly barred:
• There came a timid knock without
• And another afterward;
• But both so low & faint & weak
• That the casement never jarred.

• And weak the voice that came with the knock:—
• “My father, lend your ear!
• 'Twas store of gold that you bade me wed,
• 60 But the wife I chose was dear;
• Now she & my babes crave only bread.
• O father, pity & hear!”

• Van Hunks looked after the feathered smoke:—
• “What thing so slight and vain
• As pride whose plume is torn in the wind
• And joy's rash flight to pain?”
• Then loud: “Thou minds't when I bade thee hence,—
• Poor fool go hence again!”

• There came a moan to the lighted room,
• 70 A moan to the frosty sky:—
• “O father, my loves are dying now,
• Father, you too must die.
• Oh! on your soul, by God's good grace,
• Let not this dread hour lie!”

• “Gossip, well done!” quoth the little old man;
• And in a silvery spire,
• Like a spider's web up leaped his smoke
• A-twisting higher and higher;
• And still through the veil his watchful eye
• 80 Burned with a fell desire.

• A woman's voice came next to the wall:
• “Father, my mother died,
• 'Twas three months since that you drove her forth
• At bitter Christmastide:
• How could I care for your proffered gold
• And quit my mother's side?

• “For two months now I have begged my bread;
• Father, I can no more:
• My mother's blind & deaf in her grave,
• 90 But her soul is at Heaven's door;
• And though we're parted on this side death,
• We may meet on the other further shore.”

• Van Hunks laughed up at the scudding smoke:—
• “Ay, go what way you will!
• Of folly and pride, in life or death,
• Let a woman take her fill!
• And girl, even choose this road or that,
• So we be asunder still!”

• “Gossip, well said!” the old man shrieked,
• 100 “And mark how the words come true!”
• The smoke soared swiftly wildly around his head
• In snakes of knotted blue;
• And ever at heart of the inmost coil,
• Two fiery eyes shot through.

• Above the hearth was a carven frame
• Where seven small mirrors shone;
• There six bright moon-shapes circled round
• A centre rayed like a sun;
• And ever the reflex image dwelt
• 110 Alike in every one.

• No smokers' faces appeared there in now,
• But there lo! by magic art,
• Seven times one squalid chamber showed
• The dull grave's counterpart;
• For there two starving parents lay
• With their starved babes heart to heart.

• Then changed the scene. In the watered street,
• 'Twixt houses dark dim and tall,
• Like shaggy dogs the pollards shake
• 120 Above the dark canal;
• And a girl's thin form gleamed through the air night,
• And sank; and that was all.

• And then the smoker beheld once more more
• Seven times his own hard face;
• Half-dazed it seemed with the sudden sights,
• But showed no sign of grace;
• And seven times flashed those two fiery eyes
• In the mirror's narrow space.

• The hours wore on and still they sat
• 130 'Mid the vapour's stifling cloud;
• The one tow'rd towards sudden stupor sank,
• And While the other laughed aloud!
• Alas for the shrinking blinking owl,
• With the vulture over him bowed!

• 'Twas the second night of the wager now,
• And the midnight hour was near,
• That glance like a kindled cresset blazed:—
• “Ho! gossip of mine, what cheer?”
• But the smoke from the Dutchman's pipe pipe arose
• 140 No longer swift and clear.

• The door-bell rang: “Peace to this house!”—
• 'Twas the pastor's voice that spoke.
• Above Van Hunks's head still curled
• A fitful flickering smoke,
• As the last half-hour ere full midnight
• From the booming clock-tower broke.

• The old man doffed his bonnet & bowed cringed
• As he opened the chamber door:
• The priest cast never a glance his way,
• 150 But crossed the polished floor
• To where the Dutchman's head on his breast
• Lolled with a torpid snore.

• “Mynheer, your servant sought me out;
• He says that day and night
• You have sat——.” He shook the smoker's arm,
• But shrank in sudden fright;
• The arm dropped down like a weight of lead,
• The face was dull and white.

• And now the old man stood astride,
• 160 And taller he seemed to grow:
• The pipe sat firm in his sneering lips,
• And with victorious glow
• Like dancing figures around its bowl
• Did the smoke-wreaths come & go.

• “Nay, nay,” he said, “our gossip sits
• To contemplation bent;
• On son and daughter afar, his mind
• Is doubtless all intent;
• Haply his silence breathes a prayer
• 170 Ere the midnight hour be spent.”

• “And who art thou?” the pastor cried
• With a quaking countenance.
• —“A smoke-dried crony of our good friend
• Here rapt in pious trance.”
• And his chuckle shook the vaporous sprites
• To a madder, merrier dance.

• “Hence, mocking fiend, for I know thee now.
• The pastor signed the cross.
• Then the old man laughed & shrieked at once,
• 180 As over turret and fosse
• The midnight hour in the sleeping town
• From bell to bell did toss.

• “Too late, Poor Sir poor priest!” In the pastor's ear
• So rang the scornful croak.
• With that, a swoon fell over his sense;
• And when at length he woke,
• Two pipes lay shattered upon the floor,
• The room was ful of smoke.

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• That hour a direful Master sped
• 190 Home to his fiery place;
• A shrieking wretch hung over his back
• As he sank through nether space.
• Of such a rider on such a steed
• What tongue the flight shall trace?

• The bearer shook his burthen off
• As he reached his retinue;
• He has flung him into a knot of fiends,
• Red, yellow, green and blue:
• “I've brought a pipe for my private use,
• 200 Go trim it, some of you!”

• They've sliced the very crown from his head,—
• Worse tonsure than a monk's—
• Lopped arms and legs, stuck a red-hot tube
• In his wretchedest of trunks;
• And when the Devil wants his pipe
• They bring him Jan Van Hunks.