There's a halo shedding brightness hanging over auld lang syne,
In its light good fellowship and trust are seen to intertwine.
Let us ever harken backward to the most enchanting scenes;
To that mem'ry planted garden where we find our evergreens:
Where we keep them fresh and fruitful ready found when they are sought!
Where we cultivate the beautiful in deed and word and thought;
Where the roses have the fragrance of a love that's ever true;
And the buds cry out "forget-me-not" to all the friends we knew.
It's a precious storehouse, comrades, and you never will regret,
If you keep and nourish tenderly the things you'd not forget.
All the brave and kindly actions that your pleasant past has seen,
Kept alive with thoughful nurture will be for you ever green.
There will come a day, my comrades, it is well to note it here,
While we're taking stock of conduct with the old friends sitting near;
When the old familiar places will no more our presence see,
And there'll be no more reunions kept by either you or me.
But we know if there should come a time and come full soon it may,
When the old boys have to step aside,—December yield to May!
That the great warm heart of cycling that we've known and felt and seen,
Will not fail to scatter roses and to keep their memory green.
—Abbot Bassett.
