Perhaps, like the Nation, a hatchet you'd take
And his bottles of beer and cigar-boxes break,
And get your name blazoned in all of the papers,
By your rowdydow talk and unwomanly capers,
No! the lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touch
The lips of a female like you are--not much!
I am not a poet myself but I am fortunate in having a friend that
is, so I called on him to meet this antagonist with a nobler steel, and
behold the defeat of this champion of a dying cause:
AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE.
"The lips that touch liquor, shall never touch mine;"
The meaning is clear, the sense is divine,
Bespeaks a clear head, an unsullied heart--
A fortune from which no sane man would part.
O, God! give us more of such women, we pray,
Then slop-pots of whisky we'd urge to the fray.
The hatchets of "Carrie," and Cora Vere,
Would knock out the spigots and bungs of whisky.
An army like those would drive them pell-mell;
For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well
To escape from the jury of women turned loose
Who have drank to its dregs the damnation of booze.
The idea that women would "hanker" to touch,
The lips of a demijohn; I guess not--"not much;"
A forty-rod pole should line up between,
No nearer than that a fair lady be seen.
So now, "Indiana, of Royal Arch News,"
You've taken great pains to give us your views;
I take up the gauntlet, and venture reply;
I stop not to argue, but simply defy.
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