Chips, fragments and vestiges by Gail Hamilton :: :: University of Virginia Library

A long time ago, in the streets of “Old Lan,”
There once lived a poor but respectable man.
His station was low, and his height it was lower.
His wife's was six feet and his was just four.

Beside her, three daughters and one son had he;
He was happy as ever man could wish to be;
For all that he wanted was plenty of bread
And comfortable clothes, he always said.

His name was Charles Macbee, a farmer by trade,
And he dextrously handled the axe and the spade;
But as most men have enemies, so did he,
And a terrible one came to Charles Macbee.

And vast havoc he made when he did come,
For he came in the dreadful form of rum,
And Charley found him an inveterate foe,
For he often was high, and at times quite low.

And then Charley found his house out of repair,
A clapboard off here and a shingle off there,
And the cold wind whistled through broken glass,
And then the poor drunkard would think of the past.

And yet he grew worse and worse every day,
In spite of all things that his poor wife could say;
But at length she found that it did no good,
And she let him alone to do as he would.

At last he was arrested and held to bail,
Tried and found guilty, and carried to jail.
This was too much for his heart-stricken wife,
And, alas! sad to tell, it shortened her life.

And his poor children, too, without shoes to their feet
Or hats to their heads, went along through the street;
Their father's in jail and their mother was dead,
And left the poor children to beg for their bread.

O reader, beware, lest you too should become
A votary to this all-poisonous Rum.
But if you have begun, I pray you, refrain,
And ne'er place the cup to your lips again.