FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 28, 1906

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.

I WANDERED to the grogshop, Tom, I stood beside the bar, And drank a bowl of lemonade and smoked a bad cigar; The same old kegs and jugs were there, the ones we used to know When we were on the round top, Tom, some fifteen years ago.

I asked about our old-time friends, those cherished, sporty men, And some were in the poorhouse, Tom, and some were in the pen; And one, the one we liked the best, the hangman laid him low. The world is much the same, dear Tom, as fifteen years ago.

New crowds line up against the bar, and call for crimson ink; New hands are trembling as they pour the stuff they shouldn't drink; But still the same old watchword rings, "This round on me, you know!" The same old cry of doom we heard some fifteen years ago.

I wandered to the churchyard, Tom, and there I saw the graves Of those who used to drown themselves in red, fermented waves; And there were women sleeping there where grass and daisies grow, Who wept and died of broken hearts some fifteen years ago.

And there were graves where children slept, have slept for many a year, Forgetful of the woes that marked their sojourn here; And 'neath a tall, white monument, in death there lieth low The man who used to sell the booze some fifteen years ago. —Anon.