Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-09-14
w. c. T. u. COLUMN.
Drunk IN the Street.
Drunk in the street!

Drunk in the street,
woman arrested to-day in the city,
Comely and young the paper said,-
Scarcely twenty the item read
A woman and wife-kind angels pity!
Drunk in the street,
Drunk in the street,
Yes, crazy with liquor, her brain on fire!
Keeling, plunging, staggering along,
Singing strain of childish SONG
At last she stumbles and falls in the mire,-
Drunk in the street!
Drunk in the street!
What news to send the dear ones at home,
Who're wondering what has detained so long
The wife and mother-yet think no wrong;
The day is waning, the night has come
Drunk in the street,
Drunk in the street!
Drag her away to a station bed!
Helpless, senseless take her away!
Shut her up from the light of day!
Would for the sake of her friends she were
dead!
Drunk in the street!
Draw nigh and look!
On a couch of straw in a station cell,
Is lying a form of matchless mold;
With hair disheveled-so pale and cold
Yet tainting the ar WITH the FUMES OF neil!
Draw nigh and look!
How sad the sight!
The sunlight is streaming across the floor;
1t rouses the sleeper to life again;
But o! the anguish, the grief the pain,
AS thoughts of her shame come crowding Ger
How sad the sight,
But bark! A sound!
The bolt flies back-she is told to rise
Her friends are waiting to take her home;
They know it all, yet in love they come,
But with SPECIFICS lips and fearless eyes
The lost ones found!
Behold her now!
She goes all trembling with shame away,
Her brain still clouded with fumes of rum,
And turns her tottering feet towards home,
And the hearts she had left but yesterday;
How different now!
Close we the scene!
Fall, o night DER the saddest sight
That ever appeared to mortal view!
Shield, o skies, with your vaulted blue!
Shut, o gates of memory, Tight
Close we the scene!
But tell me, pray!
Is it worse for woman to drink than man?
Is it worse on the street, ask you, pray?
Worse to stagger in broad midday?
Worse for woman to drink than man,
I ask you, pray?
Let's reason now:
Suppose twas your mother, your sister, your
wife,
Who'd tainted her life with liquid fire,
Who'd laid her womanhood in the mire,
Who'd bartered away her bright young life,
Who'd fallen low.
And then again,
Suppose that the fiends you've licensed to sell
Had sought to ruin a much loved son,
Esteemed and honored by every one,
And were dragging him down to drunkards'
hell
With might and main,
Would you keep still?
Is it nothing to you that such things be?
You who have little ones soon to be men
And women to take your place? What then?
Is it nothing to you if you are bond or free?
Have you no Will?
Be honest now!
o father and mother and sister fair!
o brother and son and husband true!
Is there no work for you to do?
Have you no voice gainst the tempter's snare?
No word or blow?
Work night and day!
Nail up the bars where liquor is sold!
Free your town from its load of death!
Add more to the CHASTITY Wreath
OfwidOws and orphans whose knell you tolled?
Work, fight and pray!
The end will come!
God help and strengthen US day by day,
And nerve us all for the coming strife!
Our foes are strong, they struggle for life,
But God viii help us to win the day;
The end will come. Barefoot.