My friends, I believe we shall none of us quarrel
If I try from this story to draw out a moral;
Tom Smith, I am told, has now taken the pledge;
Let us hope he will keep the right side of the hedge.
But because men like Tom find it hard to _refrain_,
It's hard that we temperate folk should _abstain_;
Tea and coffee no doubt are most excellent cheer
But a hard-working man likes his _one glass of Beer_.
What with 'chining [2] and hoeing and ploughing and drill,
A glass of good beer will not make a man ill;
But one glass, like poison, you never must touch--
It's the glass which is commonly called _one too much_!
[1] Muddle.
[2] Machining, _i.e._ threshing by machinery.