Pleading--cursing--dreading to die, Selling my soul to whoever would buy, Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Merciful God, have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like the beautiful snow.
Once I was fair as the beautiful snow, With an eye like a crystal, a heart like its glow, Once I was loved for my innocent grace--
Flattered and sought for the charms of my face!
Fathers,--mothers,--sisters,--all, God and myself have I lost by my fall;
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by, Will make a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh;
For all that in on or above me I know, There is nothing so pure as the beautiful snow.
How strange it should be that this beautiful snow Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it should be when the night comes again, If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain.
Fainting,--freezing,--dying alone, Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan, To be heard in the streets of the crazy town, Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down;
To be and to die in my terrible woe, With a bed and shroud of the beautiful snow.
Helpless and foul as the trampled snow Sinner, despair not! Christ stoopeth low To rescue the soul that is lost in sin, And raise it to life and enjoyment again.
Groaning--bleeding--dying for thee The crucified hung on the cursed tree, His accent of mercy fell soft on thine ear, "Is there mercy for me? Will He heed my weak prayer?"
O, God! in the stream that for sinners did flow, Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
THE LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR MUST NEVER TOUCH MINE.
You are coming to woo me, but not as of yore, For I hastened to welcome your ring at the door, For I trusted that he, who stood waiting for me then, Was the brightest, the noblest, the truest of men.
Your lips on my own when they printed "Farewell,"
Had never been soiled by the "Beverage of Hell,"
But they come to me now with the bacchanal sign, And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I think of that night, in the garden alone, When whispering you told me your heart was my own, That your love in the future should faithfully be, Unshared by another, kept only for me.
Oh sweet to my soul is the memory still, Of the lips that met mine when they murmured "I will,"
But now to their pleasure no more I incline, For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
O, John! How it crushed me when first in your face, The pen of the "Rum Fiend" had written "Disgrace,"
And turned me in silence and tears from that breath, All poisoned and foul from the chalice of death.
It shattered the hopes I had cherished to last, It darkened the future and clouded the past, It shattered my Idol and ruined the shrine, For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I loved you, O! dearer than language can tell, And you saw it, you proved it, you knew it too well;
But the man of my love was far other than he Who now from the "tap room" came reeling to me.
In manhood and honor, so noble and right, His heart was so true and his genius so bright, And his Soul was unstained, unpolluted by wine, But the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
You promised reform; but I trusted in vain;
Your pledge was but made to be broken again, And the lover so false to his promises now, Will not as a husband be true to his vow.
The word must be spoken that bids you depart, Though the effort to speak it would shatter my heart, Though in silence with blighted affections I pine, Yet the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
If one spark in your bosom of virtue remain, Go fan it with prayer, till it kindle again, Resolved, "God helping," in future to be From wine and its follies unshackled and free.
And when you have conquered this foe of your Soul, In manhood and honor beyond its control, This heart will again beat responsive to thine, And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
--Unknown.
WAR AMONG THE POETS.
From the Royal Arch News, the warhorse of the booze hoodlums, the snapdragon of the jungle, the siren of Hades.
"The Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine," so sings--
Miss Cora Vere, who writes jingle for the Anti-Saloon press, and this is the reply that the R. A. News would make:
The lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touch The lips of a maiden like you--not much!
If a man--not a milksop--should happened to wed A creature like you, he had better be dead;
For never a moment of peace would he see Unless he would bow to your every decree, If he smoked a cigar, or drank beer, you would make A hell of his home, and perhaps you would break Into court and denounce him, in search of divorce, And fools would uphold you, as matter of course.
Perhaps, like the Nation, a hatchet you'd take And his bottles of beer and cigar-boxes break, And get your name blazoned in all of the papers, By your rowdydow talk and unwomanly capers, No! the lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touch The lips of a female like you are--not much!
I am not a poet myself but I am fortunate in having a friend that is, so I called on him to meet this antagonist with a nobler steel, and behold the defeat of this champion of a dying cause:
AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE.
"The lips that touch liquor, shall never touch mine;"
The meaning is clear, the sense is divine, Bespeaks a clear head, an unsullied heart--
A fortune from which no sane man would part.
O, God! give us more of such women, we pray, Then slop-pots of whisky we'd urge to the fray.
The hatchets of "Carrie," and Cora Vere, Would knock out the spigots and bungs of whisky.
An army like those would drive them pell-mell;
For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well To escape from the jury of women turned loose Who have drank to its dregs the damnation of booze.
The idea that women would "hanker" to touch, The lips of a demijohn; I guess not--"not much;"
A forty-rod pole should line up between, No nearer than that a fair lady be seen.
So now, "Indiana, of Royal Arch News,"
You've taken great pains to give us your views;
I take up the gauntlet, and venture reply;
I stop not to argue, but simply defy.
