Far down the by-path of a summer dream,
Glad voices call and fingers beckon me—
An oar dips music from a moonlit stream,
Where in thy prime I sailed, Old Year, with thee
And now, e’en in the shadow of thy hearse,
Ungarland save with fated mistletoe,
While midnight fiends the hours call like a curse,
You clasp my hand and smiling on me—go.
Farewell! A friend thou’st been to me, and I
Shall wander through the burial ground of years,