Rum a National Peril

Woe to the land whose rulers reek with wine!
Whose chosen guardians cast their pearls to swine, 
The pearl of reason, and virtue's richer dower, 
To their brute passions ravening to devour!
Woe! when the rabble mob, the weltering scum 
Of a proud land's permitted scoundreldom, 
May find their great preceptors at the helm, 
The reeling steersmen of a storm-lashed realm 
While timid Virtue mutely stands afraid, 
Awed by a Name that at its best she made, 
Corruption reigns by sufferance of the True, 
And holds her charter, Goodman Dumb, from you !
Ambitious crime rakes all the villain clay, 
That walked bipedal in its better day, 
From tavern bar-rooms and low kennel-doors, 
Where its frail manhood grovels on all fours,
Blots out the lives of individual souls, 
And hurls the reeking mass upon the polls, 
Where just an unwashed hand and fuming throat 
Count for one " sovereign" with a freeman's vote;
And well for true men in the imminent breach;
If the bribed ruffian cast not one for each!
Forsooth Saint John's predicted Gog is Grog, 
And the true Magog is the De-magogue.
Your sober men, whose heels obey their head, 
Walk where they will, disdaining to be led, 
And noses slip the politician's thumb, 
Ere bulbed or roughened by unwholesome rum;
The knave "runs" best on that uneven land
Where his dupes reel and true men can not stand.

In vain the patriot's prayer, the patriot's zeal, 
While rum in power corrupts the common weal.
Whatever weakens virtue, deals a blow 
At peace and freedom, deadlier than we know, 
Softens the cement of upbuilded states, 
And each firm block itself disintegrates;
Loosed, grain by grain, the integral tower stands fair 
And flaunts defiance to the lurid air;
The storm comes down, and at one lightning thrust 
The dark mass sinks, all crumbled into dust, 
And for that state, by inward vice laid low,
No resurrection angel dares to blow!