Dash to the floor that bowl!
Dare not its sweets to sip!
There's peril to the soul,
If once it touch the lip.
Why will ye drown
The God within?
Avoid the sin!
Ay, dash it down!
Once, to the exiled John
A poisoned cup was brought.
The bearer had withdrawn;-
The saint, by angels taught,
Saw, o'er its brim,
An asp's head rise,
Whose burning eyes
Were fixed on him.
So Truth, by whose bright blaze
Is many a secret sin
Revealed, in these our days
Hath taught us, that, within
That narrow span,
The wine-cup's grasp,
There lives an asp,
There dies a man!
Then let no fire be brought,
In goblet, glass, or bowl,
Within 'the dome of thought,
The palace of the soul;'
Lest, in that fire
Of burning drink,
That palace sink,
That soul expire.
Should God, in wrath, ordain
A universal dearth,
What need he do, but rain
On all this green, glad earth,
From cloudy urns,
The curse that fills
Our vats and stills,
That blights and burns?
Save us from such a shower,
God of the eastern bow!
That pledge, of love and power,
What bends, what paints it so?
That bow in air
'T is light that bends,
Heaven's light, that blends
With water there.
Let light on water shine,-
The light of love and truth!
Then shall that drink divine
Be quaffed by Age and Youth;
And, as that bow
Doth heavenward bend,
Shall heavenward tend
The way they go.