• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

Died Drunk [poem by Agnes Neale]

2 May 2016 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by Agnes Neale was published in Shadows and Sunbeams (1890).]

Died Drunk.

[One morning a woman was found dead in a cell of the Police Station, Adelaide. She had died while in a state of intoxication.]

In the dead of the silent night,
When the stars were all glistening and bright,
When the streets of the city were hushed
’Neath the silence so solemn and deep,
That lay more like death than like sleep,
Where lately life’s warm tide had rushed.

The mart and the warehouse were still,
And the great throbbing pulses that thrill
With the strong life of commerce and trade
Were still, ’neath the spell of the hour,
Bereft of their might and their power,
Like some ghost that enchantment has laid.

And down through the stillness of night,
Through the sky, that with stars was all white,
Game the angel of death and of doom;
And his dark wings made darkness more deep,
As his touch changed the spirit of sleep
To death in that night’s awful gloom.

Alone, with no loving hand nigh,
With none to receive her last sigh,
Or to whisper one word of God’s love —
That love that was meant for just such,
That love that had suffered so much
To bring them to glory above.

Would His grace not avail for this one
Who had died in that cell, and alone,
Forsaken by all of her kind?
Let us pause, ere we close mercy’s door,
On the outcast, the wretched, and poor,
Remembering God’s love is not blind.

She was cursed with earth’s deadliest foe —
With the curse of the drink fiend, I know.
On her brow his foul stamp had been set
His poison had withered life’s flowers,
Had darkened its sunniest hours,
And had made her all honor forget.

In the slough she had dragged her fair name,
And her womanhood covered with shame,
A hissing and by-word had been;
And the beauty God gave her was spoiled,
And the white of her soul was all soiled
With the stain of her horrible sin.

Yet the fairest who stands in God’s sight,
Whose soul is most pure and most white,
May lie there and die, as she died;
Alone with no love and no light,
Alone in the silence of night,
With no friendly face close at her side.

O ye sisters, I charge you, beware!
O ye daughters of earth, have a care,
Lest you fall by this very same cause!
For this cause has like issues in all,
From the hovel clear up to the hall;
All natures are ruled by like laws.

The poison that marred her pure face
Will bring you to shame and disgrace
If you love its false sparkle as well.
The demon that crushed her to death
Will blast with his venomous breath,
And kill with the power of his spell.

Every hope that has made your day bright,
And each prayer that has hallowed your night,
May be turned to a curse by his hand.
Then, daughters of earth, oh beware!
And refuse to be trapped in the snare
That is blotting with crime our fair land.

And some woman, your sister, though now
Shame’s dust lieth thick on her brow,
By the help of your hand may arise;
And out of sin’s filth and its mire
Her soul, washed and purged, may aspire
To a rest in God’s glorious skies.



Source:
Agnes Neale, Shadows and Sunbeams, Adelaide: Burden & Bonython, 1890, pages 82-85

Editor’s notes:
ere = before (from the Middle English “er”, itself from the Old English “aer”, meaning early or soon)

’neath = beneath

Old spelling in the original text:
lieth (lies)
ye (you)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Agnes Neale (Caroline Agnes Leane) (1849-1892) (author), poem, Shadows and Sunbeams (Agnes Neale 1890), SourceHathiTrust, temperance poetry, year1890

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, Kangaroo, Wattle, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Search this site

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • A billabong: Goulbourn River [postcard, 27 November 1907]
  • Dear Mac [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • The New to the Old [poem by Randolph Bedford, 3 January 1896]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]
  • New Year greetings [postcard, early 20th Century]

Top Posts & Pages

  • Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Australian slang
  • Click Go the Shears [folk music, lyrics; traditional Australian song, 1890s]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]

Archives

Categories

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Annie Crestani on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • Peter Pearsall on The Clarence [poem by Jack Moses]
  • Trevor Hurst on Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Ju on Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]
  • David Carroll on Queensland [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in