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Absent Friends.

Air: 'A Little Boy Called Taps."

When their days are done and their course is run
In the lecture-rooms and hallways,
Where the great ships go and the wild winds blow,
Do they pass and scatter all ways.
To the gleaming feast of the lurid East,
As described by Mr. Kipling;
In their endless quest through the wakeful West,
Go the strong man and the stripling.

Chorus.
In the wild and woolly places,
Where the strangest tales are told,
You will find their friendly faces,
And perhaps the Green and Gold.
One may be a bloated banker,
Or a chap with naught to spend,
So he be from Salamanca,
He is just an Absent Friend.

In the sox and ties which their fancy buys
At the latest fancy prices,
By the classic groves and the shaded coves
Of the gently flowing Isis;
To the ripples' plash and the feathered flash,
With their muscles all aquiver,
To the call from shore of "Just one stave more,"
They are swinging down the river.

Chorus.
You will find them living highly,
Like the old Olympian gods;
You will find them hiding shyly
In the various countries' quods.
One may be a bloated banker,
Or a chap with naught to spend,
So he be from Salamanca,
He is just an Absent Friend.

Or the hand of Fate through the Golden Gate
May direct them in their roaming,
Where the buffalos snort when they're pinked for sport
On the prairies of Wyoming.
Or where red deer spoors lie on Highland moors,
Is the "Sapientia Magis"
Still an honoured toast and a glorious boast
As they sit beside the haggis.

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Chorus.
You will see them come astrolling
In some unsuspected land,
As you watch the ships acoaling
By a queer old foreign strand.
One may be a bloated banker,
Or a chap with naught to spend,
So he be from Salamanca,
He is just an Absent Friend.

When their backs are bent and their strength is spent,
And their heads have no more hair on,
In a few brief ticks they will reach the Styx
And the jetty owned by Charon.
With the heroes bold of the days of old
You will find them intermingling;
If you stroll that way on a holiday
It will set your ears atingling.

Chorus.
When you hear familiar laughter,
And the same old student songs
That were hurled from roof and rafter,
In the days where youth belongs.
Be it shade of bloated banker,
Or of chap with naught to spend,
So it come from Salamanca,
It is just an Absent Friend.