Peace and Contentment

Poetry

The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell

by Don MARQUIS (1878 - 1937)

Published in 1921 (Prohibition went into effect in January 1920), "Hail and Farewell" is a collection of poems in honour of alcohol, drunkenness, and all things related.In "The Old Soak", an old codger grumbles and connives to get alcohol in the age of Prohibition. Part is narrative, and part is installments from The Old Soak's papers. “I'm writing a diary. A diary of the past. A kind of gol-dinged autobiography of what me and Old King Booze done before he went into the grave and took one of my feet with him. In just a little while now there won't be any one in this here broad land of ours, speaking of it geographically, that knows what an old-fashioned barroom was like. They'll meet up with the word, future generations of posterity will, and wonder and wonder and wonder just what a saloon could have resembled, and they will cudgel their brains in vain, as the poet says."“Have you got any of it written?” we asked him. “Here's the start of it,” said he. We present it just as the Old Soak penned it. - Summary by TriciaG & from the text

Listen next episodes of The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell:
Hail and Farewell—In a Tavern Booth , A House Divided , Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—the Barroom and Manners , Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—Unfermented Grape Juice , Hail and Farewell—A Certain Club , Hail and Farewell—A Dipsey Chantey , Hail and Farewell—A Kansas Tragedy , Hail and Farewell—A Last Drink , Hail and Farewell—A Summer Day Dream , Hail and Farewell—A Temperance Tract , Hail and Farewell—A Vision in the Night , Hail and Farewell—After Several Highballs , Hail and Farewell—An Engagement , Hail and Farewell—An Object Lesson , Hail and Farewell—Anacreon , Hail and Farewell—And You may Kecall This , Hail and Farewell—Chant Royal of the Dejected Dipsomaniac , Hail and Farewell—Crowned Singers , Hail and Farewell—Do You Remember? , Hail and Farewell—Down in a Wine Vault , Hail and Farewell—In a Tavern Booth , Hail and Farewell—In an Old-Time Tavern Booth , Hail and Farewell—In the Old Days , Hail and Farewell—On Swearing Off Again , Hail and Farewell—Once Youth Was Mine , Hail and Farewell—Proverbs XXIII, 29 , Hail and Farewell—The Battle of the Keyholes , Hail and Farewell—The Last Case of Gin , Hail and Farewell—The Old Brass Railing , Hail and Farewell—There Were Giants in the Old Days , Hail and Farewell—True, but What of It? , Hail and Farewell—Yearnings and Memories , Political Talk , Sympathy Wanted , The History Continued—Prohibition and Winter Weather , The History Continued—the Barroom's Good Influence , The History of the Rum Demon Concluded—Prohibition Is Making a Free Thinker of the Old Soak , The Old Soak Finds a Way