I like to find the gifted youth, the youth of brains and virtue, and
whisper in his ears: "In truth, one flagon will not hurt you. He who
eschews the painted breath is nothing but a fossil; just try a drink of
liquid death--just join me in high wassail." At first my words may not
avail, they but offend and fret him, but I keep camping on his trail
until at last I get him.
And having marked him for my own, I glory in the reaping; I feel that
death, and death alone, can take him from my keeping. He's mine to do
with as I will, he's mine, both soul and body; his one ambition is to
fill his outcast form with toddy. At first I take away his pride,
destroy his sense of honor, and when I see these things have died, I
know he is a goner. I house him in a squalid den, and take his decent
garments, and entertain him now and then with rats and other varmints.
I place a mortgage on his shack, despite his feeble ravings, I put old
rags upon his back, and confiscate his savings. And thus I take what
is a man, here in your Christian city, and make him, by my ancient
plan, a thing to scorn and pity.
My victims lie in Potter's Fields in regiments and legions; John
Barleycorn his scepter wields o'er all these smiling regions. I find
new victims every day as I go blithely roaming; a million feet I lead
astray between the dawn and gloaming. With sparkling beer and foaming
ale I am my friends befriending, and to the poorhouse and the jail my
followers are wending. You hear the pageant's dreary song as down the
road it ambles; I wonder, oftentimes, how long you'll stand my cheerful
gambols?