Dash to the floor that bowl! <br />Dare not its sweets to sip! <br />There's peril to the soul, <br />If once it touch the lip. <br />Why will ye drown <br />The God within? <br />Avoid the sin! <br />Ay, dash it down! <br /> <br /> <br />Once, to the exiled John <br />A poisoned cup was brought. <br />The bearer had withdrawn;- <br />The saint, by angels taught, <br />Saw, o'er its brim, <br />An asp's head rise, <br />Whose burning eyes <br />Were fixed on him. <br /> <br /> <br />So Truth, by whose bright blaze <br />Is many a secret sin <br />Revealed, in these our days <br />Hath taught us, that, within <br />That narrow span, <br />The wine-cup's grasp, <br />There lives an asp, <br />There dies a man! <br /> <br /> <br />Then let no fire be brought, <br />In goblet, glass, or bowl, <br />Within 'the dome of thought, <br />The palace of the soul;' <br />Lest, in that fire <br />Of burning drink, <br />That palace sink, <br />That soul expire. <br /> <br /> <br />Should God, in wrath, ordain <br />A universal dearth, <br />What need he do, but rain <br />On all this green, glad earth, <br />From cloudy urns, <br />The curse that fills <br />Our vats and stills, <br />That blights and burns? <br /> <br /> <br />Save us from such a shower, <br />God of the eastern bow! <br />That pledge, of love and power, <br />What bends, what paints it so? <br />That bow in air <br />'T is light that bends, <br />Heaven's light, that blends <br />With water there. <br /> <br /> <br />Let light on water shine,- <br />The light of love and truth! <br />Then shall that drink divine <br />Be quaffed by Age and Youth; <br />And, as that bow <br />Doth heavenward bend, <br />Shall heavenward tend <br />The way they go.<br /><br />John Pierpont<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hymns-and-odes-for-temperance-occasions-vi/
