This anonymous
temperance-era poem was found in an old tome called
Bible Readings for the Home Circle (
1915).
I was made to be eaten,
And not to be drank;
To be threshed in the barn,
Not soaked in a tank.
I come as a blessing
When put through a mill;
As a blight and a curse
When run through a still.
Make me up into loaves,
And your children are fed;
But if into drink,
I'll starve them instead.
In bread I'm a servant,
The eater shall rule;
In drink I am master,
The drinker a fool.