 | Later Lays and Lyrics |  |
BATTLE OF TEMPERANCE.
I.
There's a mustering of forcesFrom the mountain and the glen—
Men are arming for the struggle,
Not apologies for men.
Dry bones are to life awaking,
And prophetic eyes behold
Wonders to the “Vale of Vision,”
Like those grandly seen of old.
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II.
Long the tribes of men have languishedUnder a destroying curse;
Sore were plagues that fell on Egypt,
But Intemperance is worse.
In its gallery of portraits,
Lighted by the fires of Hell,
Flame out faces of the fallen,
Painted fearfully and well.
III.
Lo! the heads of mighty geniusIn dark frames arrest the gaze!
Round each broad, Byronic forehead
Serpents intertwined with bays.
Features of one, greatly gifted,
There the startled eye discerns;
Scotland's own immortal singer,
Early marked for ruin—Burns!
IV.
Artists of divine conceptionThat the pencil dropped at noon—
Poets, in their wild delirium,
Waking harp-strings out of tune;
And a face of kingly splendor,
With unutterable woe
Stamped on all its lines of beauty,
Whispers to the gazer—Poe!
V.
Sovereigns robed in royal purpleIn that gallery are seen—
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Blotting out majestic mien.
Alexander, crushing nations
Underneath his iron heel,
Outlined with the blood of Clytus
Clinging to his ruthless steel:
VI.
And the mighty king, Belshazzar!Drunken in his festal hall,
While a pencil, tipped with lightning,
Writes his doom upon the wall:
And the “scourge of God” who perished
When a thousand fields were won,
Overthrown by wine, the mocker,
Attila, the royal Hun.
VII.
In that gallery of horrorDarker sights the vision pain,
Truth's apostles by the Demon
Of destroying habit slain:
Priests, ordained of God, that yielded
When “the still small voice” was dumb,
An inheritance in heaven
Madly bartering for rum.
VIII.
Count the raindrops that are swallowedBy the vast, engulphing main,
Not the victims by this agent
Of the Powers of Darkness slain.
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War that reddens land and sea,
Monster! born of distillation,
Are but dwarfs compared to thee.
IX.
By no lines the realm is boundedO'er which Alcohol, the king,
Holds his reign of death and terror
While the birds of hope take wing.
Based on God-like mind in ruin,
On Love's bleeding, broken heart,
Is his throne, from which the Furies
On their fearful mission start.
X.
Who asks where his court is holden?With his satraps, Death, Despair,
In the churchyard and the dungeon,
On the scaffold—find it there!
Find it where poor widowed mourners
For their starving orphans wail,
And a host of homeless vagrants
Crowd the poor-house and the jail.
XI.
Where the druggist sells his bitters,Though it works the people ill,
And beneath a lying label
Hides the serpent of the still:
Where ten thousand homes, once happy,
By the sheriff have been sold,
Bought by venders of the poison,
Blood on their ill-gotten gold.
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XII.
Live we in a land of Freedom,While a countless host of slaves,
Bone and sinew of the country,
Stagger to dishonored graves?
While the Senate is polluted
By inebriates void of shame,
Faithless to high trusts confided,
Blots upon the Nation's fame?
XIII.
Band, my brothers! for the conflict,Though it prove a weary strife,
And, beneath our Temple's banner,
In God's name enlist for life.
Let the torrent of Destruction
Be arrested in its flow,
Bearing to a gulf of darkness
Rich and poor, the high and low.
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