Wheeling times and advertiser. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1839-1849, 1845-08-02
From the Ncw Hdren Courier.
THE DIR

z
THE DIR UNKARD.
Unhappy man whom sorrow, thus, and rage,
To different ills alternately engage;
Who drinks, alas but to forget; nor sees
That melancholy sloth, severe disease.
Memory confused and interrupted thought,
Deaths harbingers, lie in the draught;
And IN The flowers that wreath the sparkling
bowl;
ftu odders hiss and poisonous Serpents roll"
When We contemplate the life of the drur,k4
ard, il Is with feelings of mingled pity thddis-
gust. A being fortified III the image of his God
and endowed With faculties for high intellectu,
al and social enjoyment. sinkins hirtsclfbelow
the brute creation! Man! the nublest work that
ever came from the hands of the worlds great
Architect, dares tn deiace the Creators iihage,
and crush with a suicidal hand heavens pune
attributes. He lisa husband?-a father! Then
doubly ~weighty is his sin, for he has made niis-
cradle that wife whom he swore to love and
protect, and as a parent. is setting an example
before his children only calculated to poison
their mind, AMI render miserable those who
would look to the parent tree for advice and
When a man, through the process of indul-
gence i'm intoxicating beverages, has become a
drunkard, he is both physically and morally
changed. He no longer sees with the same
eyes, hears with the same ears, or has the same
faculties which he was once master of. All
around assumes n new aspect. The genial
warmth of the sm-the refreshing breeze
the beauties of nature, and all things %calculat-
ed to inspire the heart with love and admilm-
ton, are lost to him.. The pure atmosphere he
breathes is tainted with the posion. He des-
pises himself, and therefore believes that those
who are his best friends behold him with the
same feelings.
Where are now the manly virtues which
once could win the affections of confiding
friends! Where the mildness of temper, the
principles of benevolence, those traits which
so ennoblc the human character? Swept away
by the fiend intemperance!
Let him be possessed of all that wealth can
bring-let him recline upon a bed of down,
and be famed by the breath of ~fattery, the
same worm gnaws at his vitals and corrodcs
his soul. Ii is true that il thus situated, the
worlds cold scorn may not b. felt, for wealth
gathers around ii fawnipg favorites and rotten
hearted pretenders, but let his power to cater
TO the enjoyments and fashions ofthe day be
lost, and he at once becomes the poor dcspiscd
drunkard-those who were his friends while
wealth lasted have deserted him, and as their
adder tongues Were once nippant in his praise
so now are they industriously engaged in
spreading his faults and fall to the world,
~" WV oi"hhoiu Ia udppNs III hole dp-
pcaance denies. He may steep his soul in
the Leathean draught, until forgetiulness
creeps over his Supplied senses, and for a time
renders him dead TO the awful consequences
of his course, but the spell is soon broken, and
he awakes but TO feel the more keenly the
gnawing OF the worm within. There is TO
the drunkard no peace, no happiness, no hope.
He feels the full weight of the curse which,
like AN incubus, presses him TO the earth, and
yet he clings to his destroyer until, with all
the horrors OF a death produced by inebriation,
he sinks TO fill an ignominious grave, mwcpt
and announced. His suflerings on earth are
ended, but is il so with that family who have
just consigned him 10 the tomb? They vet
live to feel the blight and mildew of a drunk
ards heritage.
Ii is a reflection well calculated To impress
the free mind, with the deepest emotions. and
the thought is forced home-who would be a
drunkard! No one surely ever commenced
lille with the remotest idea that such would
be his end yet thousands OF those who once
only partook of the celebrating beverage of
fashions shrine, now feel the full weight of
the drumkards wo-the drunkard's curse.
zoe not upon the wine when il is red i'm
the cup, when IL moveth itself aright-at last
it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder"