To Drink, or Not to Drink.

To drink, or not to drink, that is the question—
Whether 'tis wiser for me still to suffer
The ills and dangers of the drinking customs;
Or, to take the Temperance pledge and keep it.
And, by abstaining, end them. To sign—to drink
No more, and by that means to say we end
The headache and the many thousand ills
Drinkers are heir to—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To sign,—to abstain,—
And then perchance be laughed at; aye, there's the rub;
What may be said, when my old friends shall come,
If I refuse to drink with them again?
That makes one pause—there's the respect
That makes our sottish habits last so long.
For who would bear the misery caused by drink,
1 he empty pockets, ragged clothes, want of food,
The pangs of indigestion, shattered nerves,
The insolence of landlords, and the spurns,
When all his money's gone, the tippler takes,
When he himself might all these ills avoid
By giving up the drink? Who would troubles bear
That cost so much, and so embitter life,
But that the dread of breaking through a custom
(That custom whence all drunkenness proceeds
And ills of every kind) perverts the will,
And makes us rather slaves to bad habits
Than to form others we know are good?
Thus custom doth make cowards of us all,
And thus a wise and noble resolution
Is often lost by such weak, timid thoughts,
And a reform that offers good to all
We thus neglect, or from it turn away,
And lose the good it oilers. Hark! I hear
My old companions coming; I'll haste away
And sign the Temperance pledge.—The Social Reformer.