The poem looks at heavy drinkers and sees people already emptied out. The opening lines describe them as "spent and worn," like a bone picked clean, with "no fight in their belly." The image of the wind beating them suggests they haven't so much chosen defeat as been knocked flat by something larger than themselves.
Then the tone shifts. The speaker turns, almost with a sigh ("o"), and names the cause: the bottle is "a pretty woman." That comparison is the heart of the poem. Alcohol is charming and tempting, and it does damage while looking appealing. She "accounts for the killing of some" and "the careening of all," a word that makes you picture people lurching and swerving toward a crash.
The speaker seems more sorrowful than angry, and doesn't scold. The mood is bleak and weary, with a hint of dark irony in the title's word "progress," since the only direction these people travel is downward.