The Whisky Ring

Away with the craft of the spoilers
     Who spare neither beauty nor age!
          Who riot, dispersing
          The cup of their cursing,
     Till thousands are whelmed in its fiery immersing,
Gone down to a burning no tears can assuage!

They gloat on the moan of the widow 
     Whose darling defender they sley, 
          The orphan's low wailing 
          Goes up unavailing,
Those deaf adders' ears for some pity assailing
     For what are our pangs to the gold of their crew?

From the cheek of the wife they hare stolen 
     The rose, and the light of her bliss;
          Life-robbers! what wonder 
          They turn them to plunder
The nation they blast iworking stealthily under
     The earth, all the nearer the central abyss!

The youth who was dawning to manhood
     They doom to a fatal eclipse,      
          The blithe hearted maiden 
          Goes down sorrow-laden,
From steeps where she stood, when, her bride-robes arrayed in,
     She gave the red cup to her lover's red lips!

Accursed be the Venomed libation, 
     The high-flushing wine of despair!
          A fountain of vengeance
          Let loose from the engines
That sweat with the death-reek in cavernous dungeons
     Of poisoners who trample the lan in their lair!

Then down with the craft of the spoilers!
     High traitors to God and the law;
          Conspirers pursuing
          Our downfall and ruin,
To build their dark wealth on the orphan's undoing;
     Death laughs in the flash of the flagons they draw!