PASS NOT THE WINE CUP by Susan Birdsall Roberts

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 11.

PASS NOT THE WINE CUP.

By Susan Birdsall Roberts

BY SUSAN BIRDSALL ROBERTS.

O, PASS not the wine to your holiday guest, There's a viper concealed 'neath its bright, sparkling crest, A foe to your peace, an assassin for him, In the soft, luring cup you have filled to the brim.

O, pass not the wine cup to lover or friend, Lest rapidly downward his footsteps shall tend, And you cry, when you see him at last in his shame, Mine alone was the guilt; and mine be the blame.

O, could you but know what others have known, Look back through the vista of years that have flown, You would offer no glass, to be pleasantly quaffed By lover or friend, of that villainous draught.

One sees, looking back through the years that are past, The whole heavens black, the sky overcast, In mourning and woe o'er the youth self-destroyed; And too often the tempter has fair hands employed.

They cover the plain like "Sennacherib's host," Ah, me! for indulgence, how fearful the cost! "Sennacherib's host!" as the dust of the mine To the army destroyed through indulgence in wine.

I see the plain widening, and broader the bed On which writhes its victims in horror and dread! Heard ye that wild shriek?—that demoniac yell? There's a brain all on fire with the beverage of hell.

Then pass not the wine cup—there lurks in its foam The bitterest foe of the happiest home. Pass it not! Dash it down! Better sever thy hand Than place in one soul Rum's ruinous brand.

Elmira, N. Y.