Prohibition (Ceylon)
After Lewis Carroll
“You are old, Prohibition” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age it is right?
“In my youth” Prohibition replied to his son
“I feared it might injure the brain.
But, now I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”
“You are old” said the youth “Your stomach’s too weak
For anything stronger than milk
Yet nightly for whiskies and sodas you creep
- your inwards will change to pulp!
Said prohibition, “you’re wrong, my boy,
It’s arrack and toddy that’s bad.
Whisky’s the stuff you can jolly well enjoy
It’s the slinkiest drink I’ve had.”
“That’s why we must close the arrack and toddy
Taverns, the East’s dissipation.
We’ll live then on whisky. What ho!, Everybody!
A wiser and soberer nation.”
T.Tambimuttu
