To S. McK.

I.
Shall we forget how, in our day,
The Sabine fields about us lay
In amaranth and asphodel,
And bubbling, cold Bandusian well,
Fair Pyrrhas haunting every way?
In dells of forest faun and fay,
Moss-lounged within the fountain's spray,
How drained we wines too rare to tell,
Shall we forget?
The fine Falernian or the ray
Of fiery C'cuban, while gay
We heard Bacchantes shout and yell,
Filled full of Bacchus, and so fell
To dreaming of some Lydia;
Shall we forget?
II.
If we forget in after years,
My comrade, all the hopes and fears
That hovered all our walks around
When ent'ring on that mystic ground
Of ghostly legends, where one hears
By bandit towers the chase that nears
Thro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheers
Of demon huntsman, horn and hound;
If we forget.
Lenora's lover and her tears,
Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneers
Of the red devil Goethe bound, -
Why then, forsooth, they soon are found
In burly stoops of German beers,
If we forget!