[THE WORM OF THE STILL.]
I have found what the learned seemed so puzzled to tell—
The true shape of the Devil, and where is his Hell;
Into serpents, of old, crept the Author of Ill,
But Satan works now as a worm of the still.
Of all his migrations, this last he likes best:
How the arrogant reptile here raises his crest!
His head winding up from the tail of his plan,
Till the worm stands erect o'er the prostrated man.
Here, he joys to transform, by his magical spell,
The sweet milk of the Earth to an Essence of Hell;
Fermented our food, and corrupted our grain,
To famish the stomach and madden the brain.
By his water of life, what distraction and fear;
By the gloom of its light, what pale spectres appear!
A Demon keeps time on his fiddle finance,
While his Passions spring up in a horrible dance!
Then prone on the earth, they adore in the dust,
A man's baser half, raised, in room of his bust.
Such orgies the nights of the drunkard display,
But how black with ennui, how benighted his day!
With drams it begins, and with drams must it end;
A dram is his country, his mistress, his friend;
Till the ossified heart hates itself at the last,
And the dram nerves his hand for a death-doing blast.
Mark that monster, that mother, that shame and that curse;
See the child hang dead-drunk at the breast of its nurse!
As it drops from her arm, mark her stupefied stare!
Then she wakes with a yell, and a shriek of despair.
Drink, Erin! drink deep from this crystalline round,
Till the tortures of self-recollection be drowned;
Till the hopes of thy heart be all stiffened to stone—
Then sit down in the dirt like a queen on her throne.
No phrensy for Freedom to flash o'er the brain;
Thou shalt dance to the musical clank of the chain;
A crown of cheap straw shall seem rich to thine eye
And peace and good order shall reign in the sky!
Nor boast that no track of the viper is seen,
To stain thy pure surface of Emerald green:
For the Serpent will never want poison to kill,
While the fat of your fields feeds the worm of the still!