Classic Poem

I have traveled over these foreign countries,
Into a broad and distant range;
I give advice to you thoughtless husbands,
I hope your hearts will only change.

Perhaps a man inclined a drunkard,
Being poor, his children small;
He works a week and draws the wages,
Goes to a grog shop and spends it all.

He leaves his comrades intoxicated;
Stumbling—he falls on every side.
He reaches home, but for fear of beating,
His poor wife makes her children hide.

With aching heart she looks upon him,
Harsh words to her soon are told.
She gathered up her small children,
And takes them out into the cold.

No shelter round them; no friends found them;
Upon the cold and frozen ground,
She stoops and kisses her little ones,
And plunges into the stream and drowns.