HURRAH FOR THE NEXT MAN THAT DIES (CLIMBERS' HYMN)
(learned in UC Hiking Club in about 1960)
We stand 'neath the mountains' rafters,
And the walls tow'ring o'er us are sheer,
No sound is heard, nor laughter,
For it seems as the dead are here.
Oh, we are the climbers' spirits,
Who died on the mountains' heights,
And still do we heed and hear its
Call to the summit's delights.
Stand, stand to your glasses steady,
And drink to your comrades' eyes,
Here's a cup for the dead already,
And hurrah for the next man that dies.
Oh, here are no goblets glowing,
It's only the water that's sweet,
And cold as our hearts are growing,
And swift as the doom that we'll meet.
Give a cheer for the life that darkles,
Shed a tear for the friends who sink
For the blood on the ice-slopes sparkles
And is red as the wine that we drink.
Stand, stand to your glasses steady(etc.)
Time was when we laughed at others,
We thought we were climbers then,
So now let us think of their mothers
Who hope they will see them again.
There's a mist on our faces congealing,
It's the alpine wind's murderous breath,
And thus does the warmth of feeling
Turn to ice in the last grasp of death.
Stand, stand to your glasses steady(etc.)
Cut off from the camps below us
And lost in the land that we find
Our brightest have naught to show us
And the dullest are dead far behind.
Better here should bodies deceive us
Than down on some swampy shore.
Better here should our spirits leave us
To climb up the heights as before!
Stand, stand to your glasses steady(etc.)
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)