It sounds rather queer, I must freely confess,
To hear a man ask kind heaven to bless
Himself and his neighbor, when over the way
His drinking saloon stands open all day.
You may call it a "drug store," but doesn't God know?
Can you hide from His eye the sorrow and woe—
The pain and the anguish, the grief and the shame
That comes from the house with a high-sounding name?
Such ill gotten wealth will surely take wing
And leave naught behind but the deadliest sting;
And oh, the account must be settled some day,
For the drug store saloon kept over the way.
Can you face the just Judge and the souls you have wrecked?
Oh, pause ere too late and note the effect.
Do you know you're destroying both body and soul
Of the men whose honor and manhood you've stole?
Does the hard accusation arouse you to fright?
Have you never looked at yourself in the light
Of a thief, nay, worse, a murderer, too?
God brands you as such, and you know it is true!
They're the deadliest poisons you have for sale—
The liquors you keep—yet you always fail
To mark them as such, and the men who drink
Can have what they want if they bring you the "chink."
Don't call such a place a drug store, pray;
But "drinking saloon," and you'd better say
On the sign o'er the door in letters clear,
"Ye abandon all hope who enter here!"