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Title: Alcohol's Arraignment And Doom
Author: Thomas Cowherd [
More Titles by Cowherd]
Alcohol! Alcohol! who are thy victims?
Come, answer me quickly; stand forth to the bar!
That frown most defiant
Will not make me pliant,
I've pledged myself firmly to wage with thee war.
For years thy dread shock
I have borne like a rock,
Still leaning for help on God's mighty aim.
Say, Alcohol, truly, who are thy victims?
"Of the rich and the poor, the good and the fair,
Mankind of each standing,
Know well I've a hand in
The havoc and ruin they see everywhere!
Daily with fury
From Still and from Brewery
I'm dealing out death without much alarm.
"Princes and Statesmen I count 'mongst my victims,
With painters and poets, philosophers sage,
Rich merchants, skilled doctors,
Cute lawyers, keen proctors,
Mechanics and laborers of each sex and age
Are found in my ranks,
And lured on by my pranks,
While I care not a pin what comes to them."
Then, Alcohol, tell me what do thy victims
In such vile standing while here in this world?
"They're spending their money
Not for milk and honey,
But for what will cause them to be quickly hurled
To that dreadful place
Where there is not a trace
Of richest mercy they here do contemn."
Alcohol, tell me what more are thy victims
As fruits of their orgies accomplishing here?
Asylums they're filling,
While jails by their swilling
Are constantly crowded, or far off or near;
And orphans are made
By this great liquor trade,
In thousands as all may very soon see!
Alcohol, listen the doom which awaits thee:
More than half of thy doings thou'st kept out of sight.
Every good man and true
Deems it is but thy due
That thou should'st be banished to Regions of Night.
And heart-broken mates,
With all orphans' sad fates,
Compel us to give forth this doom on thee.
[The end]
Thomas Cowherd's poem: Alcohol's Arraignment And Doom
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