| IN fallow college days, Tom Harland, | |
| We both have known the ways of Yale, | |
| And talked of many a nigh and far land, | |
| O'er many a famous tap of ale. | |
| There still they sing their Gaudeamus, | 5 |
| And see the road to glory clear; | |
| But taps, that in our day were famous, | |
| Have given place to Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Now, settled in this island-city, | |
| We let new fashions have their weight; | 10 |
| Though none too lucky—more 's the pity!— | |
| Can still beguile our humble state | |
| By finding time to come together, | |
| In every season of the year, | |
| In sunny, wet, or windy weather, | 15 |
| And clink our mugs of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| On winter evenings, cold and blowing, | |
| 'T is good to order "'alf and 'alf"; | |
| To watch the fire-lit pewter glowing, | |
| And laugh a hearty English laugh; | 20 |
| Or even a sip of mountain whiskey | |
| Can raise a hundred phantoms dear | |
| Of days when boyish blood was frisky, | |
| And no one heard of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| We 've smoked in summer with Oscanyan, | 25 |
| Cross-legged in that defunct bazaar, | |
| Until above our heads the banyan | |
| Or palm-tree seemed to spread afar; | |
| And, then and there, have drunk his sherbet, | |
| Tinct with the roses of Cashmere: | 30 |
| That Orient calm! who would disturb it | |
| With Norseland calls for Lager Bier? | |
| |
| There 's Paris chocolate,—nothing sweeter, | |
| At midnight, when the dying strain, | |
| Just warbled by La Favorita, | 35 |
| Still hugs the music-haunted brain; | |
| Yet of all bibulous compoundings, | |
| Extracts or brewings, mixed or clear, | |
| The best, in substance and surroundings, | |
| For frequent use, is Lager Bier. | 40 |
| |
| Karl Schaeffer is a stalwart brewer, | |
| Who has above his vaults a hall, | |
| Where—fresh-tapped, foaming, cool, and pure— | |
| He serves the nectar out to all. | |
| Tom Harland, have you any money? | 45 |
| Why, then, we 'll leave this hemisphere, | |
| This western land of milk and honey, | |
| For one that flows with Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Go, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed maiden, | |
| My German Hebe! hasten through | 50 |
| You smoke-cloud, and return thou laden | |
| With bread and cheese and bier for two. | |
| Limburger suits this bearded fellow; | |
| His brow is high, his taste severe: | |
| But I 'm for Schweitzer, mild and yellow, | 55 |
| To eat with bread and Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Ah, yes! the Schweitzer hath a savor | |
| Of marjoram and mountain thyme, | |
| An odoriferous, Alpine flavor; | |
| You almost hear the cow-bells chime | 60 |
| While eating it, or, dying faintly, | |
| The Ranz-des-vaches entrance the ear, | |
| Until you feel quite Swiss and saintly, | |
| Above your glass of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Here come our drink, froth-crowned and sunlit, | 65 |
| In goblets with high-curving arms, | |
| Drawn from a newly opened runlet, | |
| As bier must be, to have its charms, | |
| This primal portion each shall swallow | |
| At one draught, for a pioneer; | 70 |
| And thus a ritual usage follow | |
| Of all who honor Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Glass after glass in due succession, | |
| Till, borne through midriff, heart and brain, | |
| He mounts his throne and take possession,— | 75 |
| The genial Spirit of the grain! | |
| Then comes the old Berserker madness | |
| To make each man a priest and seer, | |
| And, with a Scandinavian gladness, | |
| Drink deeper draughts of Lager Bier! | 80 |
| |
| Go, maiden, fill again our glasses! | |
| While, with anointed eyes, we scan | |
| The blouse Teutonic lads and lasses, | |
| The Saxon—Pruss—Bohemian, | |
| The sanded floor, the cross-beamed gables, | 85 |
| The ancient Flemish paintings queer, | |
| The rusty cup-stains on the tables, | |
| The terraced kegs of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| And is it Göttingen or Gotha, | |
| Or Munich's ancient Wagner Brei, | 90 |
| Where each Bavarian drinks his quota, | |
| And swings a silver tankard high? | |
| Or some ancestral Gast-Haus lofty | |
| In Nuremburg—of famous cheer | |
| When Hans Sachs lived, and where, so oft, he | 95 |
| Sang loud the praise of Lager Bier? | |
| |
| For even now some curious glamour | |
| Has brought about a misty change! | |
| Things look, as in a moonlight dream, or | |
| Magician's mirror, quaint and strange. | 100 |
| Some weird, phantasmagoric notion | |
| Impels us backward many a year, | |
| And far across the northern ocean, | |
| To Fatherlands of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| As odd a throng I see before us | 105 |
| As ever haunted Brocken's height, | |
| Carousing, with unearthly chorus, | |
| On any wild Walpurgis-night; | |
| I see the wondrous art-creations! | |
| In proper guise they all appear, | 110 |
| And, in their due and several stations, | |
| Unite in drinking Lager Bier. | |
| |
| I see in yonder nook a trio: | |
| There 's Doctor Faust, and, by his side, | |
| Not half so love-distraught as Io, | 115 |
| Is gentle Margaret, heaven-eyed; | |
| That man in black beyond the waiter— | |
| I know him by his fiendish leer— | |
| Is Mephistopheles, the traitor! | |
| And how he swigs his Lager Bier! | 120 |
| |
| Strange if great Goethe should have blundered, | |
| Who says that Margaret slipt and fell | |
| In Anno Domini Sixteen Hundred, | |
| Or thereabout; and Faustus,—well, | |
| We won't deplore his resurrection, | 125 |
| Since Margaret is with him here, | |
| But, under her serene protection, | |
| May boldly drink our Lager Bier. | |
| |
| That bare-legged gypsy, small and lithy, | |
| Tanned like an olive by the sun, | 130 |
| Is little Mignon; sing us, prithee, | |
| Kennst du das Land, my pretty one! | |
| Ah, no! she shakes her southern tresses, | |
| As half in doubt and more in fear; | |
| Perhaps the elvish creature guesses | 135 |
| We 've had too much of Lager Bier. | |
| |
| There moves, full-bodiced, ripe, and human, | |
| With merry smiles to all who come, | |
| Karl Schaeffer's wife—the very woman | |
| Whom Rubens drew his Venus from! | 140 |
| But what a host of tricksome graces | |
| Play around our fairy Undine here, | |
| Who pouts at all the bearded faces, | |
| And, laughing, brings the Lager Bier. | |
| |
| "Sit down, nor chase the vision farther, | 145 |
| You 're tied to Yankee cities still!" | |
| I hear you, but so much the rather | |
| Should Fancy travel where she will. | |
| You let the dim ideals scatter; | |
| One puff, and lo! they disappear; | 150 |
| The comet, next, or some such matter, | |
| We 'll talk above our Lager Bier. | |
| |
| Now, then, your eyes begin to brighten, | |
| And marvellous theories to flow; | |
| A philosophic theme you light on, | 155 |
| And, spurred and booted, off you go! | |
| If e'er—to drive Apollo's phaeton— | |
| I need an earthly charioteer, | |
| This tall-browed genius I will wait on, | |
| And prime him first with Lager Bier. | 160 |
| |
| But higher yet, in middle Heaven, | |
| Your steed seems taking flight, my friend; | |
| You read the secret of the Seven, | |
| And on through trackless regions wend! | |
| Don't vanish in the Milky Way, for | 165 |
| This afternoon you 're wanted here; | |
| Come back! Come back! and help me pay for | |
| The bread and cheese and Lager Bier. | |
