Cocktails are the little brooms
That whiskey way your will-power!
A dark disease is Bright's disease,
And will not yield to pill-power.
Some may upon red rums descant
Who never did decant rums,
But I have eaten bitter bread
Where bitters breed their tantrums.
The fool will give his life to booze,
The wiser man taboos that,
And I'm a sad Budweiser man
Than when I used to ooze that.
I owned a bank, and for a fad
I cultivated two lips;
If I had owned the mint itself
'Twould all have gone for juleps.
Mumm's extra dry makes some men grow
As dry as any mummy,
But when I'm tight I loosen up--
A punch, and I am chummy.
Except when I swore off in Lent
With borrowers I mingled;
They'd make my pockets cease to clink
Whenever I was jingled.
But though I drank with scarce a check
My drafts saved people trouble,
For I would often pay dubs twice
Because I saw 'em double.
O, cognac is a fearful drink
To brandy man with shame, O!
He will, that drinks diluted gin,
Die looted of good name, O!
I wined till I began to ail,
And then I whined with aleing,
Until to crown the woes I cite
I found my eyesight failing.
“Sir, fits will come,” my doctor warned,
“Surfeits will bloat the mind, sir!”
I laughed and took my glasses off
And said, “I'll go it blind, sir!”
Champagnes and real incider me
Set my high spirits flagon;
Still with gay dogs I played the wag,
Deriding of the wagon.
My tongue was like a cotton bale,
All whitish from the gin, sir--
The doctor said “No tongue can state
The state your tongue is in, sir!”
“With so much rye and corn you cope,
Your crowd are cornucopers--
How can earth be Utopia
When peopled by you topers?”
But still I dodged from fête to fête,
Still followed by my fate, O!
Still floating loans and liquids till
My bank did liquidate, O!
Buns use up dough; what my fun did,
Were it refunded one day,
Would fund the Banks of Newfoundland
And float the Bay of Fundy.
Don't hitch your wagon to a star
Upon the brandy bottle;
If you your neck to nectar ope
Your hope 'twill surely throttle.