The Drunkard's Family

Ye who have felt the joy
   Of childhood’s guarded life,
Pity the drunkard’s boy
   And the drunkard’s wretched wife!
Through the dreary winter’s day
   He leaves thema lone and ill;
Night falls on his gloomy way,
   But afar he lingers still.

Hunger and cold are there
   In that house of want and woe,
Where all the blasts of air
   Through the broken windows blow.
They have no bread to eat,
   They have no wood for the hearth
Save what the loud storms beat
   From the giant trees in wrath.

The worn and weary wife
   Sits shivering in her rags,
Bewailing a wasted life
   That all too heavily drags.
Her moaning baby is pressed,
   In the misery of despair,
Close, close to her aching breast,
   But the death-chills find it there!

Away through the drifted snow,
   Some pitying heart to seek,
Their boy in his shame must go,
   Hungry, and tattered, and weak.
Oh! pity the drunkard’s wife
   And his poor, forsaken boy,
And shun the drunkard’s life,
   For he knows no innocent joy.