Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 13, 22 April 1871, Page 18

Select Poetry.

THE SONG- OF THE QUART. [Melbourne Punch.] With eyes that looked half boiled, With brain as heavy as lead, A toper sat in a threepenny tap, Unclean, unkempt, unfed. Drink, drink, drink (Tho' he'd pawned the clothes he'd bought), Yet still with a drunk and maudlin voice He sang the song of the Quart. My wife is slaving at home, My daughters are both in gaol, And that which should feed my starving boyß Is spent in colonial ale. My shanty is leaking with wet, My bed. is seized for rent; The cupboard contains not' a crust to eat, And my very last copper is spent. I've been in good employ Till I took to the fatal drink A few short years ago I could reason, act, and think. But I ? ve gone down stage by stage, Till I'm but a " loafer" now; I can only think of how to get drink. I can see my folly now. Had I the money yet That I've,squandered the last ten years, What a different home I'd have, With smiles instead of tears j Who would begrudge a man One honest quart a /lay, When his work is hot and his money's got, So long as he didn't give way ? But if ever he gets like me Small help for him remains ; Look back he can't, ahead he daren't, For the drink his soul enchains. Drink, drink, drink, No matter how dearly bought; To drown reflection is all he cares, So that he gets his Quart. When I stagger home at night Against the whitewashed wall I see my sprite, in the cold moonlight, Reeling as if to fall. Far oftener than in my bed I sleep in the.hard cold cell, But it's done in kindness more than wrath, For the " bobbies" know me well. The prison yards I knew, Where sober I soon became ; But when I got out I cared for nought— In a week I was just the same. Slow poison, two I drink In the stuff the brewers sell; There are hundreds here in this city now That this self-same story tell. On Sundays now are closed The taverns I hold so dear. What matters that to me ? At home I booze my beer! When drunk I beat my wife, She hates the Sunday then ; My children all slink out of doors, My home becomes a den ! Many an honest man This poisonous stuff has killed ; Many a deadly drug Those hogsheads large has filled. Oh, legislator new! Look into this gi'eat sin ; They are not murderers by the law, But are they not akin! Drink, drink, drink, This colony's very curse ; Drink, drink, drink, Till it ends in the gloomy hearse ; Drink, drink, drink, Till the brain gets quite distraught, And still in his drunken maudlin tones — Would that his voice could reach some homeE— He sang the song of the Quart.