The Charlotte Journal

He had bowed down to drunkenness,
An abject worshipper:
The pulse of manhood's pride had gone
Too faint and cold to stir:
And he had given his spirit up
Unto the humblest thrall:
And, bowing to the poisoned cup,
He gloried in his fall.
There came a change—the cloud rolled off.
And light fell on his brain—
And like the passing of a dream
That cometh not again,
The shadow of his spirit fled,
He saw the gulf before—
He shuddered at the waste behind—
And was a man once more.
He shook the serpent's fold away.
That gathered round his heart,
As shakes the swaying forest oak
Its poison vine apart;
He stood erect—returning pride
Grew terrible within :
And Conscience sat in judgment on
His most familiar sin.
The light of intellect again
Along his pathway shone;
And Reason like a monarch stood
Upon its golden throne:
The honored and the wise once more
Within his presence came—
And lingered oft on lovely lips
His once forbidden name.
There may be glory in the might
That treadeth nations down—
Wreathe for the crimson conqueror—
Pride for the kingly crown—
But nobler in that triumph how?
The disenthralled shall find,
When evil passion boweth down
Unto the godlike mind.