Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.

Miscellaneous

Gaudeamus

By Student Song

Translated by H. W. Dulcken

LET us then rejoice, ere youth

From our grasp hath hurried;

After cheerful youth is past,

After cheerless age, at last,

In the earth we ’re buried.

Where are those who lived of yore,

Men whose days are over?

To the realms above thee go,

Thence unto the shades below,

An’ thou wilt discover.

Short and fleeting is our life,—

Swift away ’t is wearing;

Swiftly, too, will death be here,

Cruel, us away to tear,

Naught that liveth sparing.

Long live Academia,—

And our tutors clever;

All our comrades long live they,

And our female comrades gay

May they bloom forever.

Long live every maiden true,

Who has worth and beauty;

And may every matron who

Kind and good is, flourish, too,

Each who does her duty.

Long may also live our state,

And the king who guides us;

Long may live our town, and fate

Prosper each Mecænas great,

Who good things provides us.

Perish melancholy woe,

Perish who derides us;

Perish fiend, and perish so

Every antiburschian foe

Who for laughing chides us.