Ergo Bibamus!

FOR a praiseworthy object we're now gather'd here,

So, brethren, sing: ergo bibamus!

Tho' talk may be hush'd, yet the glasses ring clear,

Remember then: ergo bibamus!

In truth 'tis an old, 'tis an excellent word,

With its sound so befitting each bosom is stirr'd,

And an echo the festal hall filling is heard,

A glorious ergo bibamus!

I saw mine own love in her beauty so rare,

And bethought me of: ergo bibamus;

So I gently approach'd, and she let me stand there,

While I help'd myself, thinking: bibamus!

And when she's appeased, and will clasp you and kiss,

Or when those embraces and kisses ye miss,

Take refuge, till found is some worthier bliss,

In the comforting ergo bibamus!

I am call'd by my fate far away from each friend;

Ye loved ones, then: ergo bibamus!

With wallet light-laden from hence I must wend.

So double our ergo bibamus!

Whate'er to his treasures the niggard may add,

Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had,

For gladness lends over its charms to the glad,

So, brethren, sing; ergo bibamus!

And what shall we say of to-day as it flies?

I thought but of: ergo bibamus

'Tis one of those truly that seldom arise,

So again and again sing: bibamus!

For joy through a wide-open portal it guides,

Bright glitter the clouds, as the curtain divides,

And a form, a divine one, to greet us in glides,

While we thunder our: ergo bibamus!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(tr. Edgar Alfred Bowring)

Index to poems in the collection by Johann Wolfgang Goethe