he mouth' and won't hurt you,
As old Falstaff winks it, in spite of your virtue;
A temperate stimulant cup, to displace
Pipes, hasheesh, and opium, and all that bad race;
Cheap as pure water and free as fresh air--
Oh, where shall we find such a beverage--where?

"No wine for the pure or the wise--so some teach--
Abstinence utter for all and for each,
Total denial of every right use,
Because some bad fools the good creature abuse!
As well might one vow not to warm at a fire,
Nor give the least rein to a lawful desire,
Because some have recklessly burnt down their houses,
Because the rogue cheats, or the reveller carouses!
I see not the logic, the rational logic,
Conclusive to me, coherent and cogic,
That since some poor sot in his folly exceeds,
I must starve out my likings, and stint out my needs.

"Am I _that_ brother's keeper? He is not an Abel,
Is strange to my roof, and no guest at my table:
I know not his mates, we are not near each other,
He swills in the pothouse, that dissolute brother!--
But there's your example?--The drunkards can't see it,
And if they are told of it, scorn it and flee it;
Example?--Your children!--No doubt it is right
To be to them always a law and a light;
But moderate temperance is the vise way
To form them, and hinder their going astray;
Whereas utter abstinence proves itself vain,
And drunkards flare up because good men abstain.

"The law of reaction is stringent and strong,
A youth _in extremis_ is sure to go wrong,
For the pendulum swings with a multiplied force
When sloped from its even legitimate course.
I have known--who has not?--that a profligate son
Has been through his fanatic father undone;
Restrained till the night of free licence arrives,
And then he breaks out to the wreck of two lives!

"A fierce water-fever just now is red-hot;
Drink water, or perish, thou slave and thou sot!
Drink water alone, and drink more, and drink much--
But, liquors or wines? Not a taste, not a touch!
Yet, is not this fever a fervour of thrift?
It is wine you denounce, but its cost is your drift;
The times are so hard and the wines are so bad
(For good at low prices are not to be had),
That forthwith society shrewdly shouts high
For water alone, the whole abstinence cry!
And, somehow supposed sug