Madison Cawein - To S. McK. lyrics

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 Cæcuban, 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!