The lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touch The lips of a maiden like you--not much! If a man--not a milksop--should happened to wed A creature like you, he had better be dead; For never a moment of peace would he see Unless he would bow to your every decree, If he smoked a cigar, or drank beer, you would make A hell of his home, and perhaps you would break Into court and denounce him, in search of divorce, And fools would uphold you, as matter of course. Perhaps, like the Nation, a hatchet you'd take And his bottles of beer and cigar-boxes break, And get your name blazoned in all of the papers, By your rowdydow talk and unwomanly capers, No! the lips that touch liquor don't hanker to touch The lips of a female like you are--not much! I am not a poet myself but I am fortunate in having a friend that is, so I called on him to meet this antagonist with a nobler steel, and behold the defeat of this champion of a dying cause: AN AMERICAN COUNTESS, OR LADY VERE. "The lips that touch liquor, shall never touch mine;" The meaning is clear, the sense is divine, Bespeaks a clear head, an unsullied heart-- A fortune from which no sane man would part. O, God! give us more of such women, we pray, Then slop-pots of whisky we'd urge to the fray. The hatchets of "Carrie," and Cora Vere, Would knock out the spigots and bungs of whisky. An army like those would drive them pell-mell; For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well To escape from the jury of women turned loose Who have drank to its dregs the damnation of booze. The idea that women would "hanker" to touch, The lips of a demijohn; I guess not--"not much;" A forty-rod pole should line up between, No nearer than that a fair lady be seen. So now, "Indiana, of Royal Arch News," You've taken great pains to give us your views; I take up the gauntlet, and venture reply; I stop not to argue, but simply defy. You say in one case one had better be dead Than with a good woman in wedlock be wed: But somewhere I've read your kind do not die; But passing from earth, 'are hung up to dry." Besotted with whiskey,--unfitting to tell, Even Satan himself avoiding the "smell;" Before then we part, I would bid you adieu, Reform while you may--begin life anew. If you have a surplus--like Lady Vere, Please pass them around, turn them over to me; "A la Hobson"--I'd venture to sample the store, And look o'er the field--yes! and "hanker" for more. Sparta, Mo. D. E. GRAYSTON. "GOD BLESS OUR CARRIE NATION." May she live to see the day, When the liquor traffic will be no more, When the traffic of the devil Will all be swept away And God's peace remain supreme from shore to shore. God bless the hatchet wielder, May it never cease to strike, Till it drives the cursed intemperance from our land Let us stand for God and duty, Till we gain the Eden of beauty And be what God designed for us, A happy union band.