SEVEN STAGES OF DRUNKENNESS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 996, 8 November 1881, Page 4

SEVEN STAGES OF DRUNKENNESS.

All the world’s a pub, And all the men and women merely drinkers: They have their hiccups and their staggerings ; And one man in a day drinks many glasses, His acts being seven stages. At first the gentleman, Steady and steadfast in bis good resolves ; And then the wine and. bitters, appetiser, And pining, yearning look, leaving like a snail The comfortable bar. And then the arguments, Trying, like Hercules, with a wrathful frontage To refuse one more two-penn’orth. Then the mystified, Full of strange thoughts, unheeding good advice, Careless of honour, sodden, thick, and gutt’ral, Seeking the troubled repetition Even in the bottle’s mouth ; and then quite jovial, In fair, good humour while the world swims round, With eyes quite misty, while his friends him cut, Full of nice oaths and awful bickerings ; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the stupid, slippering, drunken man, With “ blossoms ” on his nose and blearyeyed, His shrunken face unshaved, from side to side

He rolls along ; and his unmanly voice, Huskier than ever, fails and flies And leaves him—staggering round. Last scene of all, That ends this true and painful history, Is stupid childishness, and then oblivion— Sans watch, sans chain, sans coin, sans everything.