Weep, wretched woman, weep! That face Shall haunt thee to thy dying day; Nor time from memory erase Thy child's deep wrongs; for they Shall scorch into thy guilty breast; In mad excitement thou shalt hear Her cries; and midst thy fitful rest, Shall that pale phantom form appear, And o'er thy drunken moping, stand To curse thee with an outstretched hand.
Yet not alone with thee, abides That curse. Oh, Men, and Christians! can Ye robe yourself in god-like pride, And boast your land, the one where man Is most exalted; yet permit The Demon Drunkenness to roam Unfettered through your streets; to sit By ev'ry corner, ev'ry home-- The weak and wretched to allure To drink, to suffer, and endure?
In mercy, then, arrest the reign Of this dread fiend; and Oh! protect Man from his self-inflicted pain. Spare the young wife, whose hopes are wreck'd, Whose heart is crushed, whose home forsaken, Whose life's a desolated wild. To infant prayers and tears awaken, And from the mother save the child. Hark to that echo!--"Save, oh, save!" Pleads a sad voice from Katy's grave.
"Pleads a sad voice from Katy's grave-- Save, oh, save!"
Fathers! mothers! sons! daughters! husbands! wives! Christians! philanthropists! All--brothers and sisters!--hear ye that voice? If ye do not, then, indeed, are ye deaf. Then have I cried in vain. In vain I have visited the abodes of wretchedness and sin, to draw materials for my panorama of "Life Scenes in New York." In vain I have painted you dark scenes of life, instead of those which shine out in the noonday sun.
In vain have I endeavored to awaken your sympathies by relations of tales of woe, or painted vice, as I have met with it in my midnight rambles, to guard you from its snares, if I have failed to touch that chord in your heart which brings a tear to the eye, for it is that which will prompt you to action--to sleepless vigilance, to eradicate from the world the great cause of such human misery as I have depicted. It is that which, will prompt you to give, if nothing more,
"Three grains of corn, Only three grains of corn, mother,"
towards the redemption of the fallen, and protection of those who need a staff and a guide to hold them back from the precipice over which they have gone down to ruin.