THE LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR MUST
NEVER TOUCH MINE.
You are coming to woo me, but not as of yore,
For I hastened to welcome your ring at the door,
For I trusted that he, who stood waiting for me then,
Was the brightest, the noblest, the truest of men.
Your lips on my own when they printed "Farewell,"
Had never been soiled by the "Beverage of Hell,"
But they come to me now with the bacchanal sign,
And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I think of that night, in the garden alone,
When whispering you told me your heart was my own,
That your love in the future should faithfully be,
Unshared by another, kept only for me.
Oh sweet to my soul is the memory still,
Of the lips that met mine when they murmured "I will,"
But now to their pleasure no more I incline,
For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
O, John! How it crushed me when first in your face,
The pen of the "Rum Fiend" had written "Disgrace,"
And turned me in silence and tears from that breath,
All poisoned and foul from the chalice of death.
It shattered the hopes I had cherished to last,
It darkened the future and clouded the past,
It shattered my Idol and ruined the shrine,
For the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
I loved you, O! dearer than language can tell,
And you saw it, you proved it, you knew it too well;
But the man of my love was far other than he
Who now from the "tap room" came reeling to me.
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