Pass where we may, through city, or through town, Village or hamlet of this merry land, Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel. There sit involved and lost in curling clouds Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, The lackey, and the groom. The craftsman there Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil; Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike, All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed Its wasted tones and harmony unheard; Fierce the dispute, whate’er the theme; while she, Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. In this she lays A weight of ignorance, in that, of pride, And smiles delighted with the eternal poise. Dire is the frequent curse and its twin sound The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised As ornamental, musical, polite, Like those which modern senators employ, Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame. Behold the schools in which plebeian minds, Once simple, are initiated in arts Which some may practise with politer grace, But none with readier skill! ’Tis here they learn The road that leads from competence and peace To indigence and rapine; till at last Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out. But censure profits little. Vain the attempt To advertise in verse a public pest, That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks and is of use. The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touched by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away. Drink and be mad then; ’tis your country bids! Gloriously drunk, obey the important call, Her cause demands the assistance of your throats;— Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.