Disease was lurking in the cup! <br />Disastrous folly mantling there! <br />For promised joys he quaffed it up— <br />And his were ruin and despair! <br />Yes—so deceived he tasted first, <br />And fashion the delusion nurst, <br />Till with the texture of his life <br />It wove a warp of madness, agony, and strife. <br /> <br />The festive bowl!—to that he owes <br />Those drops of shame which now bedew <br />His burning brows—the hell of woes <br />His haggard spirit rushing through! <br />Young, innocent, he took the road <br />That leads to honor’s bright abode; <br />But joined, unwarned, upon the way <br />A bacchanalian troop—there stationed to betray. <br /> <br />Oh, could he but recall the past! <br />Oh, could he be what he had been! <br />The pearls of mental promise, cast <br />Away for riot’s joys obscene, <br />Could he reclaim! and knew his soul <br />To execrate, as now, the bowl— <br />That voice which sang to his brave youth <br />High hopes, and glorious aims, were still a voice of truth. <br /> <br />Oh what like self contempt can blast <br />The lofty hope, the wish refined? <br />In bitter mockery, at the “last <br />Infirmity of noble mind” <br />It laughs—a laugh in which despair <br />And wild defiance mingled are: <br />And not even madness can exempt <br />The votary of the bowl from grinning self-contempt. <br /> <br />Yet, could he but forbear to raise <br />The hellward-hastening draught again, <br />Time yet might quench the lurid blaze, <br />The fiery serpent in his brain! <br />Friendship might take his hand once more, <br />Fond love caress him as before; <br />And gentle peace, and comfort mild, <br />Smile on his future years, as on his youth they smiled.<br /><br />Charles Harpur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-drunkard-5/
