THREE RHINELAND DRINKING SONGS

I. If our life is the life of a flower
(And that's what some sages are thinking),
We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood
And 'twill bloom all the sweeter --
Yes, life's the completer
For drinking, and drinking, and drinking!

If it be that our life is a journey
(As many wise folks are opining),
We should sprinkle the way with the rain while we may;
Though dusty and dreary,
'Tis made cool and cheery
With wining, and wining, and wining!

If this life that we live be a dreaming
(As pessimist people are thinking),
To induce pleasant dreams there is nothing, me seems,
Like this sweet prescription,
That baffles description --
This drinking, and drinking, and drinking!

II. ("Fiducit. ") Three comrades on the German Rhine --
Defying care and weather --
Together quaffed the mellow wine
And sung their songs together,
What recked they of the griefs of life
With wine and song to cheer them?
Though elsewhere trouble might be rife,
It would not come anear them!

Anon one comrade passed away,
And presently another --
And yet unto the tryst each day
Repaired the lonely brother,
And still, as gayly as of old,
That third one, hero-hearted,
Filled to the brim each cup of gold
And called to the departed:

"O comrades mine, I see you not,
Nor hear your kindly greeting;
Yet in this old familiar spot
Be still our loving meeting!
Here have I filled each bouting cup
With juices red and cherry --
I pray ye drink the portion up,
And, as of old, make merry!"

And once before his tear-dimmed eyes,
All in the haunted gloaming,
He saw two ghostly figures rise
And quaff the beakers foaming;
He heard two spirit voices call:
"Fiducit, jovial brother! "
And so forever from that hall
Went they with one another.

III. (Der Mann im Keller.) How cool and fair this cellar where
My throne a dusky cask is!
To do no thing but just to sing
And drown the time my task is!
The cooper, he's
Resolved to please,
And, answering to my winking,
He fills me up
Cup after cup
For drinking, drinking, drinking.

Begrudge me not this cozy spot
In which I am reclining --
Why, who would burst with envious thirst
When he can live by wining?
A roseate hue seems to imbue
The world on which I'm blinking;
My fellow men -- I love them when
I'm drinking, drinking, drinking.

And yet, I think, the more I drink,
It's more and more I pine for --
Oh such as I (forever dry! )
God made this land of Rhine for!
And there is bliss
In knowing this,
As to the floor I'm sinking;
I've wronged no man,
And never can,
While drinking, drinking, drinking!

End of title