Cocktails are the little brooms
That whiskey way your will-power!
A dark disease is Bright's disease,
And will not yield to pill-power.
Some may upon red rums descant
Who never did decant rums,
But I have eaten bitter bread
Where bitters breed their tantrums.
The fool will give his life to booze,
The wiser man taboos that,
And I'm a sad Budweiser man
Than when I used to ooze that.
I owned a bank, and for a fad
I cultivated two lips;
If I had owned the mint itself
'Twould all have gone for juleps.
Mumm's extra dry makes some men grow
As dry as any mummy,
But when I'm tight I loosen up—
A punch, and I am chummy.
Except when I swore off in Lent
With borrowers I mingled;
They'd make my pockets cease to clink
Whenever I was jingled.
But though I drank with scarce a check
My drafts saved people trouble,
For I would often pay dubs twice
Because I saw 'em double.
O, cognac is a fearful drink
To brandy man with shame, O!
He will, that drinks diluted gin,
Die looted of good name, O!
I wined till I began to ail,
And then I whined with aleing,
Until to crown the woes I cite
I found my eyesight failing.
“Sir, fits will come,” my doctor warned,
“Surfeits will bloat the mind, sir!”
I laughed and took my glasses off
And said, “I'll go it blind, sir!”
Champagnes and real incider me
Set my high spirits flagon;
Still with gay dogs I played the wag,
Deriding of the wagon.
My tongue was like a cotton bale,
All whitish from the gin, sir—
The doctor said “No tongue can state
The state your tongue is in, sir!”
“With so much rye and corn you cope,
Your crowd are cornucopers—
How can earth be Utopia
When peopled by you topers?”
But still I dodged from fÊte to fÊte,
Still followed by my fate, O!
Still floating loans and liquids till
My bank did liquidate, O!
Buns use up dough; what my fun did,
Were it refunded one day,
Would fund the Banks of Newfoundland
And float the Bay of Fundy.
Don't hitch your wagon to a star
Upon the brandy bottle;
If you your neck to nectar ope
Your hope 'twill surely throttle.