[Jerome Betts]

Hope that's a winner, Douglas, Much more entertaining than the original.
You remind me that AEH started life versifying for the Temperance movement, all that later stuff about malt and Milton notwithstanding

O lad, rest unacquainted
With what they call 'a round';
Plain water, cool, untainted,
Lays no chap underground.
From old men stooped and slippered
To youths once tall and true,
Ale's fumes have kippered
The brains of not a few.

And fellows that go barmy
Fare on to fearful ends;
They sign up for the army,
Or cut their throats, or friends.
Ay, lads who fill their crops in
The smoke-room or the snug
Oft take last drops in
The county jug.