The Hydrant-Headed Monster

It comes! The monster rearing high,
Against the lurid western sky,
Its horrid, hissing Hydrant Heads,
While o’er the shuddering land it sheds
A dreary pall of waste and woe
And chilling streams of H₂O.
Now saints defend us, one and all,
And most especially Saint Paul,
Thou patron saint of Honest Fighting
And Common Sense and Letterwriting,
Who one time, for his “stomach’s sake,”
Bade Timothy the wine cup take;
Stay now this Water Fiend’s advance
And save thy servant Temperance,
Ere Abstinence, that glum wet-nurse
Of Dire Dyspepsia, Chills, and worse,
Blow out the Lights of Love and Mirth,
And so asphyxiate the Earth.