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AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE.
  
  
  

  
  
  

AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE.

"The lips that touch liquor, shall never touch mine;"
The meaning is clear, the sense is divine,
Bespeaks a clear head, an unsullied heart—
A fortune from which no sane man would part.
O, God! give us more of such women, we pray,
Then slop-pots of whisky we'd urge to the fray.
The hatchets of "Carrie," and Cora Vere,
Would knock out the spigots and bungs of whisky.
An army like those would drive them pell-mell;
For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well
To escape from the jury of women turned loose
Who have drank to its dregs the damnation of booze.
The idea that women would "hanker" to touch,
The lips of a demijohn; I guess not—"not much;"
A forty-rod pole should line up between,
No nearer than that a fair lady be seen.
So now, "Indiana, of Royal Arch News,"
You've taken great pains to give us your views;
I take up the gauntlet, and venture reply;
I stop not to argue, but simply defy.
You say in one case one had better be dead
Than with a good woman in wedlock be wed:
But somewhere I've read your kind do not die;
But passing from earth, `are hung up to dry."
Besotted with whiskey,—unfitting to tell,
Even Satan himself avoiding the "smell;"
Before then we part, I would bid you adieu,
Reform while you may—begin life anew.
If you have a surplus—like Lady Vere,
Please pass them around, turn them over to me;
"A la Hobson"—I'd venture to sample the store,
And look o'er the field—yes! and "hanker" for more.
Sparta, Mo.
D. E. GRAYSTON.