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If Temperance should turn the scale,

And total abstinence prevail,

Rhyme-mongers would be flatter still,

A million lines, not worth a mill.

Lord Byron’s verse, so highly prized,

Had fail’d to be immortalized,

Unless the noble bard had been

Exalted on the wings of gin.

As to Anacreontic lays,

A Moore could make no more displays,

Ay, Thomas Moore could never more

Make Bacchanalians shout encore.

If Temperance chaps wont suffer wine

Nor gin t’ inspire the maudlin nine,

Some verse by critics dubb’d divine

Will seem almost as flat as mine.

Horace says dulce est desipere,[23]

Drink till your way home’s rather slippery,

But don’t indulge in gross ebriety,

Save in the very best society.

The lower orders too, we think,

Unless addicted to strong drink,

Might rise to riches and renown,

Thus turn society up side down.

Let paupers, therefore, swig away,

With gin and whiskey soak their clay,

For beggars, somebody says or sings,

When drunk as lords are rich as kings.

And if by temperance and frugality,