The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-03-17
TEMPERANCE READING.
MY VISION.

MY VISION.
"Look Not Upon the Wine When 1t IL
Red"
LOOK not upon the wine when It is red,"
The preacher said
Nor when it gives its color in the cup;"
Attend, the poisoned chalice hath filled up,
And he that drinks, drinks misery and death.
But once gazed into its rudy tide;
The flend stood by my side:
Upon my cheek felt his blighting BREATH
And as gazed, he laughed with hellish glee,
And whispered: Take the gift prefer thee;
Twill rouse thy heart,
And bid its pulses start
With joyous LIFE, and thrill
Each nerve with new delight:
Twill fill
The earth with beauty and the heavens with
light
Spell-bound, gazed into the fatal bowl,
And saw sight that thrilled my inmost soul
What saw in the bowl? Be patient friend,
And hear me to the end.
Twas not sight that thou would'st care to
see;
And seen but once, 'twould haunt thy memory.
And, as a fever dream, return again
TO mock with shapes OF dread the dazed brain
Wraiths of the living, 'spectres OF the dead
D~AASAN NAASJ SOhANi u EhoSblSy BlOOuly
look not on the wine when it is red
Lest forms of dread
From its red depths to blast and blight thine
eyes.
Look not" the preacher said
Look not upon the wine when it is red"
o have seen in waters clear and bright
The glorious upper world OF bloom and light
The nodding spires Of grass, the swaying trees,
And heavens azure fecked with argosies
or silver clouds; and all things true and fair
Were mirrored there;
And have even
In deep dark wells beheld the light OF heaven,
Bright in reflect on as the orbs that roll
In majesty above.
What saw lin the bowl?
Twas not the waving grasses dewy bright,
The nodding trees the clouds, the stars of
night
No! Darker visions swept before my sight
All well the preacher said:
Look not upon the wine when it is red.'
AS the magician sees before him pass
Demons Of darkness mirrored in his glass,
The shrouded, CHASTITY tenants Of the grave,
And the dread underworld Of mystery,
So l, when gazing at the vine which gave
The crimson hue that dyes the sunset wave,
'''N''
Saw sights, would God 1 never more might
sec
Saw stars go out on earth to shine no more
Saw shattered wrecks upon storm beat
shore
Saw ships go down before the tempest's
wrath
Saw hopeless ruin in the whrlwind's path.
Brave hopes and high
Had persisted utterly.
GLORY was Ouenched in shame and love in IA
The fairest homes of earth were desolate,
OF love, of hope, of happiness bereft.
All! what was left?
Edens, from which the bloom of life had fed,
Gardens of roses growing thorns instead,
Sad visions of the dying and the dead,
Were pictured in the wine when it was red.
! saw palace radiant and fair,
Its marble walls bedight with sculptures rare,
And gathered in its halls the young and gay
To speed in revelry the hours away.
Pour out the Wine" the insidious tempter
cried,
Twas the same fend that halted by my side.
Pour out the wine; each emptied glass fill
up"
All! how it gave its color in the cup
Each goblet flashed aloft its baleful red
death-lit flame! With its ensanguined tide
The snowy marble of the walls was dyed,
AS in the glow OF CONGREGATIONS dire,
AS III Iuc llEns OF nell s lnt6nSeSt IRE.
The end was near; dTeamlike the vision sped;
The palace lay in ruins Ger its dead.
This saw in the wine when it was red
l saw thousand homes made desolate
BY the red hand of murder. Pitiless fate
Binding his victims, gave them unto death,
And life and beauty withered al breath.
Alas for the despair
OF stricken ones! Alas! the young and fair,
Beauty with golden hair.
Childhood with dimpled face,
Youth with unconscious grace.
Faded life's morning bloom, its glory fed
And mothers casping in a long embrace
Within Their pulseless arms their murdered
dead.
saw million graves,
Earth furrowed with them, as the sea with
waves
Graves, not of those who passed away in pride,
But who, in AFFECT misery, drank and died;
Graves OF the nameless, aforementioned dead;
The raindrops are the tears above them shed;
Heaven weeps for them, human lids are dry.
Men shun the fields unconsecrate
Where they forgotten lie;
Orhaply point moral by their fate,
To warn the passer-by,
To shun the paths which they were lured to
tread.
10 look not on the VINE Wnen u is red
saw the small and great,
BE fore the judgment seat
Waiting the verdict of the last great day.
In far-ofT fields of air,
Unclouded and serene
The jasper walls of holy Heaven were seen
Whitero and fair
The throngs OF the forgiven scared away,
And through the pearly portals passed for
aye.
For aye forgiven.
But oh, for those the hapless slaves Of sin
That stood below unshrivcn,
Waiting in vain the mandate: Enter in"
For everywhere,
Upon the ga.her ng clouds, the darkening
air,
Was writ the lurid sentence OF despair: