Your modest and moderate drinker,
Who's also a fair-minded thinker,
Would look in the face
The fell scourge of our race.
Sense from logic should not be a shrinker.

But drinking and drunkenness, truly,
Should not be confounded unduly.
Fanatics here blunder;
As far they're asunder
As Tempe and Ultima Thule!

We thank you, whose lucid urbanity
Assures us our favourite "vanity"
(To quote cheery SAM)
Need _not_ be a "dram"
To drive us to death or insanity.

Good wine and sound ale have their uses,
To distinguish 'twixt which and abuses
The clear-headed want;
But illogical cant
Will ne'er solve our worst social _cruces_.

"Table waters and watery" wines, Sir,
Don't cheer up a man when he dines, Sir.
To gases and slops,
And weak "fizzles," and "pops,"
The weak stomach only inclines, Sir.