Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-02-24
The Rum stream.
BY REV. A. T. BAILEY.

| BY REV. A. F. BAILEY.
4 Poem read at the First Anniyersary Of The
| Ladies' Temperance association Of Rutland,
| February llHt 1870.
A current is fowing-it has long rolled its tides
From dram shop to drunkard incessant it glides;
Mid forestand glebe and garden and meadow
1t moves ever on, but always in shadow.
In gloom is its course from its own exhalations,
For freely it yields all due liquor rations;
And all who're afloat are seized with its vapors,
Exhibiting thus the most astonishing capers.
Its channels as winding as our Otter Creek,
| Or as ever has grown the crookedest stick.
Alas! it is worse than the Stygian stream,
| About which the old Mythologies dream.
| Its flow is as dark and its banks are drear
As the shades and specters of the region of Fear.
Its fountains many, some large and some
| small,
/ But alike in one feature-Death's in them all =
Aye, Death in form from which mortals may
| shrink, .-
When the flow of their tide crowds them over its
brink
pangs, ET 81 -
Where souls ever feel its yenemous fangs.
Did say death was in them Yes double and
quick.
That death is augmented by ertenSiOla's base
trick,
And the old river of Rum with poison now flows,
The vilest and wickedest compound of woes.
The springs that supply the flow of this stream,
Are more numerous far than most of us dream.
We think of the four that in prominence stand,
Where home can be found for each TRAVELLING
band
| A home! tho alas not the moraIst's haven.
Yet in numbers four, and we thus find them
even.
| But should we but count all below the street
l. squad,
Why, then, we should find the number was old.
And were we to add all of cellar and shanty
| More figures we'd find exceedingly handy.
Yet others We ween, where domesticity dwells,
By use of the h0naenaQde" the foul waters swell.
| What wonder, with fountains thus copious, so,
Should fill wide channel with aqueous woe,
And send through our village its currents of i'll,
| And thus many hearts with wretchedness fill.
Our bailitfs, tits true, have sought these to bail
out,
And thus empty this stream by dint of a drought.
/ Alas for their measures-their measures are
small!
1 AS well air the world with bit OF squall.
/ As we'll tame shrew with shake of the head,
/ Or from putty and plaster make premium bread.
| They bail out small one, and then bail again,
They clear out the dogs kennel but not the VOLTS
den;
i Squire Lofty goes free, but poor Pat finds "the
Jug"
The Squire grows the fatter for this polite hug
| The lsw-thus enforced, he likes it full well;
| To every one, now, hen be able to sell
Such policy may be tho't pretty shrewd,
| R,1tr most of ne think If dani5a1Iv
And can't greatly disturb the rum-aging brood,
| Nor, in this effect much permanent good.
For, despite all such efforts the river, it flows.
And rolls ever on-a perdition of woes.
But one thing e'er makes it unlike other streams;
l For when dryest the weather 49, the fullest it
| CLEANS.
And thus, while all others are low-as we note,
This overhows then, and runs down in the throat.
| Nor needeth the many on salt fish to dine,
| To drink, at such times, of this river of wine.
| But this stream ever chapgsth it's nature along,
As it wendeth It's course thro' humanity throng
i And, as washing the banks of tissue and bone,
| Its spell is as potent as a tropical zone.
| 1t toucheth the life and death is Away,
Tho that life hath been the most robust and gay,
| And health fades as quickly as light fades away
When sunbeams of brightness forsaketh the day.
| And in place of good health, in protean forms,
4
The bright eye of genius is paled by its touch,
| And vigorous virtue then taketh a erutch.
| 1t turneth that eye to beautiful red,
| And giveth the tippler load in his head
| 1t toucheth the skin with rum-colored hue,
| And maketh its victim beauty to view.
| Now, anon, they bloat up like air balloon,
And waddle about like duck loon;
l Or else, in their bloat they meet with a balk,
| And dry up and look like an old mullen stalk =
With wounds without cause, like patches of pas-
ter,
| They look like potatoes" with rot for master.
1t toucheth the hat and tits minns a top,
With the broken rim dangling with many flop;
While the hair stands aloft like grass on roof,
| While the habltants thence are taking " q
preQf:"-
| Or else, in rare ringlets it ioweth about,
Like its stag'ring owner on homeward route.
| 1t toucheth the heart, and it turns it sour
As tub of Dutch krout, and that in an hour.
1t toucheth the mind with its venomous tide,
And no longer its tho'ts the footsteps can guide.
| The light of the soul goes out in the man
Twas extingushed by rum wherever it ran.
The garner, whence once famed the genius of
soul,
The devil now uses as bin for his coal
| The fuels gnited by the Spirit of Wine,
And every woe, earthly, in his spirit combine.
1t toucheth his wealth, and soon Poverty's pack
OF demoniac wolves howl close on his track,
| And with their kindly glances look in through
the pane,
Or howl at the door which he shutteth in vain
It touches his home, once so peaceful and bright,
| The center of comfort, OF JOY and delight;
And all these flee away like birds from a storm,
And tn substance of beauty is a desolate form.
The paint of his domicile it weareth away,
While clapboards hang loosely and shingles awry,
And the rain drops descending, no hindrance
meet,
And SO with shower bath doth our topper greet.
Oh If down his throat, might those love drops of
heaven
given.
But vsinly we lustrate the cuticle clean,
So long as the human is lustful and mean.
The bricks from his chimney anon fall with a
| spat, ere
While the owner reels round with "brick in his
hat"
And then the vile flood, by mortgage and pawn,
Soon himself washes out, as debris forlorn;
While his wife and his children once dear to his
soul,
Hare now nothing left, but the town pauper's
goal,
But this river of ill transformeth also,
Society's blessings to the bitterest woe.
Wherever it enters no power can withstand,
All dread its dictation, all fear its command.
As It did with the family, SO with the school,
The savant of genius it turns out fool;
Yet many knowing its power welcome its rule.
The fumes OF its tide beguile the unwary,
And stupid they're made or they are made crazy,
1t enters the market, and mutton and beef
Are converted to sorrow by digestion of grief
1t drives out the oxen and also the sheep,
And the bench of the broker O. erturns with its
sweep,
o'erturns and sweeps out both chattel and chief,
While the latter finds, that dear bot was his beef
O'erturns and drives ont not a temple to clean,
But work to perform but dirty and mean.
For in the effect of its Circean fog,
It fiRdeth them men, but leaveth them hog.
For it changes the trader oft into cheat,