THE FATAL GLASS.

He raised the cup to his pure, sweet lips— Lips fresh from a mother's kisses; Merry the banquet hall that night, For youth and beauty were there, and bright The glittering lamps shone o'er them; And one had sung with a voice divine, A song in praise of the ruby wine, That graced the feast before them. Little he dreamed as he lightly quaffed The sparkling wine, that the first rare draught Was a link in the chain to bind him, And drag his soul, like a servile slave, Down slippery steps to a shameful grave, From a throne where love enshrined him. She raised the cup to her tainted lips— Lips foul with the vilest curses— In a loathsome haunt of sin and shame, Where Christian charity seldom came, With its holy words to teach them Of the pastures green and waters sweet— Of her who wept at the Master's feet, Whose boundless love could reach them. Is love so dear, and life so cheap, That one poor soul, like a wandering sheep, Alone on the bleak, cold mountain, Should gladly turn from a life accursed, To drown the past and quench the thirst In draughts from a poisonous fountain? He raised the cup to his trembling lips— Lips wrinkled by age and hunger; The meagre pittance he'd begged for food, Brightened the palm of the man who stood At his bar with his wines around him. He drank, and turned on tottering feet To the bitter storm and the cold, dark street, Where a corpse in the morn they found him. And oh! could those speechless lips have told Of the want and sorrow, hunger and cold He had known, or the answer given, When his trembling soul for entrance plead At the crystal gates, where One has said, "No drunkard shall enter Heaven!"