168

SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS.

SONG

OF THE FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DRUNKARDS IN THE

UNITED STATES.

We Come! we come! with sad array,

And in procession long,

To join the army of the lost,—

Five Hundred Thousand strong.

Our banners, beckoning on to death,
Abroad, we have unrolled;
And Famine, Care and wan Despair
Are seen upon their fold.

Ye heard what music cheers us on,-
The mother's cry that rang
Só wildly, and the babe that wailed
Above the trumpet's clang.

We've taken spoil; and blighted joys
And ruined homes are here:

We've trampled on the throbbing heart,
And flouted sorrow's tear.

SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS.

169

We come! we come!-we've searched the land,

The rich and poor are ours; Enlisted from the shrines of God,

From hovels and from towers.

And who, or what, shall balk the brave
That swear to drink and die?
What boots to such, man's muttered curse
Or His that spans the sky?

Our Leader!-who of all the chiefs,
Warring for Glory's lust,—

Can boast, like him, such deeds, such griefs,
Such wounds, such trophies, curst?

We come! Of the world's scourges, who
Like him have overthrown?
What wo had ever earth, like wo
To his stern prowess known?

Onward! though ever on our march
Hang Misery's countless train;
Onward for hell-from rank to rank
Pass we the cup again!

We come! we come! to fill our graves
On which shall shine no star;

To glut the worm that never dies,—
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

170

NONE SAVED BY MY CARE.

NONE SAVED BY MY CARE.

THE judgment day! the judgment day! When flaming worlds will haste away,― If mine it is that day to stand,

A ransomed one, at thy right hand,—

How could I gaze upon the throng,
That wake on golden lyres the song,
If none, that day, the rapture share,
Led by my love and labour there?

While spirits, each to each, would tell
Of weal and wo that here befell,
Should I not, from the frowning throne,
Wander in heaven, unblest, alone?

While life is lent, before that day
Draws on, when toil is past away,
Let me, well learned the heavenly road,
Lead others the same path to God.

APOSTROPHE.

TAKE wings, take wings, and seek the lost,
The lost, guilt's weary, willing slave;
Where lies he, helpless, hopeless, tost,
A wreck upon the sundering wave;
And seem to his despair the dove,
Whose symbol types relief and love.

Take wings, and seek the dreaming dead,
The dead, o'er whom night holds misrule;
And, dipt in heaven, around them shed
The splendours of the Sunday-school;

Whose glories, woven on the throne,

Have burst, and streamed, and downward shone.

Take wings, and fresh memorials bear

Of by-gone men, whose feet were shod With truth; whose spear and shield was prayer, Who fought and journeyed up to God; And shrine, with more than victor's fame,

The martyr missionary's name.

Yet speedier, loftier, soar again,

And fling abroad thy living light;

And flood the flowering prairie's plain,
And gild the wooded mountain's height;
Till rich redemption's glory shines
On western wilds and eastern pines.

Till, from the unforbidden tree

Of knowledge, drops delicious fruit;
Where'er the curse hath had decree,
Wherever roams the destitute;
On isles, that ocean's bosom gem,
On continents, that fringe its hem.

Take wings, take wings, a voice! it comes
From wanderers that once were blest
With fair New England's Sabbath homes,
A voice of pleading from the West!
Respond, O herald, to that cry,
With tidings of deliverance nigh.

Tidings!—the feet of steadfast men,

Are standing, in their beauty now, On field and plain and blossomed glen, And the rejoicing mountain's brow. Already have savannas rung

With music of the lisper's tongue.

Already, where their mossy nests

The small birds build on branching limb,