Brave lads in olden musical centuries,
- Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
- Sat late by alehouse doors in April
- Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:
Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
- Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
- Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted;
- Love and Apollo were there to chorus.
Now these, the songs, remain to eternity, Those, only those, the bountiful choristers Gone—those are gone, those unremembered Sleep and are silent in earth forever.
So man himself appears and evanishes, So smiles and goes;
as wanderers halting at Some green-embowered house, play their music, Play and are gone on the windy highway;
Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory Long after they departed eternally, Forth-faring tow’rd far mountain summits, Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.
Youth sang the song in years immemorial; Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful; Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;
Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy—
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian Sea-grey lagoons, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.
Davos, Spring 1881.