For a praiseworthy object we’re now gathered here,
  So, brethren, sing:  ERGO BIBAMUS! 
  Tho’ talk may be hushed, yet the glasses ring clear,
  Remember then, ERGO BIBAMUS! 
  In truth ’tis an old, ’tis an excellent word,
  With its sound befitting each bosom is stirred,
  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 approached, and she let me stand there,
  While I helped myself, thinking:  BIBAMUS! 
  And when she’s appeared, 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 called 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 treasure the niggard may add,
  Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had,
  For gladness lends ever 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.

THE WALKING BELL[23] (1813)

  A child refused to go betimes
  To church like other people;
  He roamed abroad, when rang the chimes
  On Sundays from the steeple.

  His mother said:  “Loud rings the bell,
  Its voice ne’er think of scorning;
  Unless thou wilt behave thee well,
  ’Twill fetch thee without warning.”

  The child then thought:  “High over head
  The bell is safe suspended—­”
  So to the fields he straightway sped
  As if ’twas school-time ended.

  The bell now ceased as bell to ring,
  Roused by the mother’s twaddle;
  But soon ensued a dreadful thing!—­
  The bell begins to waddle.

  It waddles fast, though strange it seem;
  The child, with trembling wonder,
  Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;
  The bell would draw him under.

  He finds the proper time at last,
  And straightway nimbly rushes
  To church, to chapel, hastening fast
  Through pastures, plains, and bushes.

  Each Sunday and each feast as well,
  His late disaster heeds he;
  The moment that he hears the bell,
  No other summons needs he.

FOUND[24] (1813)

  Once through the forest
  Alone I went;
  To seek for nothing
  My thoughts were bent.