Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-06-08
A Temperance Poem.
By DR.. CHARLEs JEWEIT,

Ye who regardless of your country's good,
Fill up your Golfers with the price Of blood;
Who pour out poison with liberal hand,
And scatter crime and misery through the land,
Though now rejoicing in the midst of health,
In full possession of ill-gotten wealth
Yet few days at most, the hour must come,
When ye shall know the poison-seller' doom,
And shrink beneath it, for upon you all
Shall mans hot curse and Heavens vengeance
fall.
In vain ye strive, with hypocritic tongue,
To make mankind believe ye do no wrong.
You know the fruits OF your Hnrighteous trade,
Ye see the awful havoc it has made,
Ye pour out men, DISEASE and WANT and WOE,
And then tell US, ye wish it were not so!
But tits a truth, and that ye know full well,
That some qUiN drink as long as ye a0iN sell,
But here that old excuse yet meets us still,
'If don't sell the poison, others wiIp'-
Then let them sell and you'll be none the worse,
They'll have the profits and they'll have the
curse.
Bear this in mind, you have at your command
The power to bless or power to curse the land;
If ye will sell, Intemperance still shall roll
Her waves of bitterness DER many SOUL
Still shall the wife for her lost husband mourn,
And sigh for days that never will return;
Still that unweloome sight our eyes shall greet,
OF beggared children strolipg through the street;
And thousands whom our labors cannot save
Go trembling reeling tottering to the grave.
Still lettering round your shops the live-long day,
Will scores OF idlers pass their lives away,
And cen the peaceful night, for rest ordained,
Shall with their noisy revels be profaned;
The poisonous cup will pass. and mirth and glee
Glide DER the surface of their misery;
Uproarious laughter fill each space between
Harsh oaths, ungodly songs ,'and jests obscene;
And there you'll stand, amid the drunken tbroug,
Laugh at the jest and glory in the song.
Pour out your poison till some victim dies,
Then go, and at his funeral wipe your eyes
Join there the mourning thTonk with solemn face,
And help to bear him to his burial place;
There stands the wife with weeping children
round,
While their fast falling tears bedew the ground
From many an eye the gem of pity starts,
And many q sigh from sympathizing hearts
Comes laboring up, and almost chokes the breath
While thus they gaze upon the work of death.
The task concludes,-the relics of the dead
Are slowly settled to their damp cold bed;
Come now. draw near, my money-making friend
You saw THE STARTING, come and see THE END.
Look now into that open grave, and say
Do'st feel no sorrow, no remorse to-day?
Does not your answering conscience loud declare
That your cursed duarice has laid him there!
Now, since the earth has closed DER his remsins
Turn DER your books and count your honest
gains,
How doth the account for his last week begin!
september twenty-fourth-one quart of gins
A like amount for each succeeding day,
Tells on your book, but wears his life away.
Saturdays charge makes out the account com
plete,
"To cloth, five yards-to make a winding sheet
There all stsnes fair, without mistake or flaw,
How honest trade will thrive upheld by LAW :!
"A fact.