“GOOD-BYE”

WE say it for an hour or for years;
We say it smiling, say it choked with tears;
We say it coldly, say it with a kiss;
And yet we have no other word than this, —
“Good-bye.”

We have no dearer word for our heart’s friend,
For him who journeys to the world’s far end,
And scars our soul with going; thus we say,
As unto him who steps but o’er the way,—
“Good-bye.”

Alike to those we love and those we hate,
We say no more in parting. At life’s gate,
To him who passes out beyond earth’s sight,
We cry, as to the wanderer for a night,—
“Good-bye.”


Grace Denio Litchfield

ON PARTING WITH HIS BOOKS

AS one, who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, but hopes again, ere while,
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers, as he may, affliction’s dart;
Thus, lov’d associates! chiefs of elder art!
Teachers of wisdom! who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you — nor with fainting heart.
For, pass a few short years, or days or hours,
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;
When freed from earth, unlimited its powers.
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.

William Roscoe.

ALL TOGETHER

OLD friends and dear! it were ungentle rhyme,
If I should question of your true hearts whether
Ye have forgotten that far, pleasant time,
The good old time when we were all together.

Our limbs were lusty and our souls sublime,
We never heeded cold and winter weather,
Nor sun nor travel, in that cheery time,
The brave old time when we were all together.

Pleasant it was to tread the mountain thyme,
Sweet was the pure and piny mountain ether,
And pleasant all; but this was in the time,
The good old time when we were all together.

Since then I’ve strayed through many a fitful clime,
(Tossed on the wind of fortune like a feather,)
And chanced with rare good fellows in my time —
But ne’er the time that we have known together.

But none like those brave hearts (for now I climb
Gray hills alone, or thread the lonely heather,)
That walked beside me in the ancient time,
The good old time when we were all together.

Long since, we parted in our careless prime,
Like summer birds no June shall hasten hither;
No more to meet as in that merry time,
The sweet spring-time that shone on all together.

Some, to the fevered city’s toil and grime,
And some o’er distant seas, and some —ah! whither?
Nay, we shall never meet as in the time,
The dear old time when we were all together.

And some —above their heads, in wind and rime,
Year after year, the grasses wave and wither;
Aye, we shall meet! —’t is but a little time,
And all shall lie with folded hands together.


And if, beyond the sphere of doubt and crime,
Lie purer lands —ah! let our steps be thither;
That, done with earthly change and earthly time,
In God’s good time we may be all together.

Henry Howard Brownell.

THE GREENWOOD

OH! when ’t is summer weather,
And the yellow bee, with fairy sound,
The waters clear is humming round,
And the cuckoo sings unseen,
And the leaves are waving green, —
Oh then ’t is sweet,
In some retreat,
To hear the murmuring dove,
With those whom on earth alone we love,
And to wind through the greenwood together.

But when ’t is winter weather,
And crosses grieve,
And friends deceive,
And rain and sleet
The lattice beat,—
Oh! then ’t is sweet,
To sit and sing
Of the friends with whom, in the days of Spring,
We roamed through the greenwood together.

William Lisle Bowles

PARTED FRIENDS

My bosom friend, ’t is long since we have looked
Upon each other’s face; and God may will
It shall be longer, ere we meet again.
Awhile it seemed most strange unto my heart
That I should mourn, and thou not nigh to cheer;
That I should shrink ’mid perils, and thy spirit
Far away, far, powerless to brave them with me.
Now I am used to wear a lonesome heart
About me; now the agencies of ill
Have so oppressed my inward, absolute self,
That feelings shared and fully answered, scarce
Would seem my own. Like a bright singular dream
Is parted from me that strong sense of love,
Which, as one indivisible glory, lay
On both our souls, and dwelt in us, so far
As we did dwell in it. A mighty presence!

There is another world: and some have deemed
It is a world of music, and of light,
And human voices, and delightful forms,
Where the material shall no more be cursed
By dominance of evil, but become
A beauteous evolution of pure spirit,

Opposite, but not warring, rather yielding
New grace, and evidence of liberty.
Oh, may we recognize each other there,
My bosom friend! May we cleave to each other
And love once more together! Pray for me,
That such may be the glory of our end.

Arthur Henry Hallam.

THE VANISHED PAST

From “The Golden Legend”

PRINCE HENRY

I CANNOT sleep! my fevered brain
Calls up the vanished Past again,
And throws its misty splendors deep
Into the pallid realms of sleep!
A breath from that far-distant shore
Comes freshening ever more and more,
And wafts o’er intervening seas
Sweet odors from the Hesperides!
A wind, that through the corridor
Just stirs the curtain, and no more,
And, touching the æolian strings,
Faints with the burden that it brings!
Come back! ye friendships long departed!
That like o’erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled, one by one,
To stony channels in the sun!
Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!
Come back, with all that light attended,
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away!
They come, the shapes of joy and woe,
The airy crowds of long-ago,
The dreams and fancies known of yore,
That have been, and shall be no more.
They change the cloisters of the night
Into a garden of delight;
They make the dark and dreary hours
Open and blossom into flowers!
I would not sleep! I love to be
Again in their fair company;
But ere my lips can bid them stay,
They pass and vanish quite away!
Alas! our memories may retrace
Each circumstance of time and place,
Season and scene come back again,
And outward things unchanged remain;
The rest we cannot re-create,
Nor set our souls to the same key
Of the remembered harmony!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

ONLY A YEAR

ONE year ago, —a ringing voice,
A clear blue eye,
And clustering curls of sunny hair,
Too fair to die.

Only a year, — no voice, no smile,
No glance of eye,
No clustering curls of golden hair,
Fair but to die!

One year ago, —what loves, what schemes
Far into life!
What joyous hopes, what high resolves,
What generous strife!

The silent picture on the wall,
The burial-stone
Of all that beauty, life and joy,
Remain alone!

One year, —one year, — one little year,
And so much gone!
And yet the even flow of life
Moves calmly on.

The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair,
Above that head;
No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray
Says he is dead.

No pause or hush of merry birds
That sing above
Tells us how coldly sleeps below
The form we love.

Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen, —
What visions fair, what glorious life,
Where thou hast been?

The veil! the veil! so thin, so strong!
’Twixt us and thee;
The mystic veil! when shall it fall,
That we may see?

Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone,
But present still,
And waiting for the coming hour
Of God’s sweet will.

Lord of the living and the dead,
Our Saviour dear!
We lay in silence at thy feet
This sad, sad year.

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

THE LAVENDER

HOW prone we are to hide and hoard
Each little treasure time has stored,
To tell of happy hour!
We lay aside with tender care
A tattered book, a lock of hair,
A bunch of faded flowers.

When death has led with silent hand
Our darlings to the “Silent Land,”
Awhile we sit bereft;
But time goes on; anon we rise,
Our dead and buried from our eyes,
We gather what is left.

The books they loved, the songs they sang,
The little flute whose music rang
So cheerily of old;
The pictures we had watched them paint,
The last plucked flower, with odor faint,
That tell from fingers cold.


We smooth and fold with reverent care
The robes they living used to wear;
And painful pulses stir
As o’er the relics of our dead,
With bitter rain of tears, we spread
Pale purple lavender.

And when we come in after years,
With only tender April tears
On cheeks once white with care,
To look on treasures put away
Despairing on that far-off day,
A subtle scent is there.

Dew-wet and fresh we gathered them,
These fragrant flowers; now every stem
Is bare of all its bloom:
Tear-wet and sweet we strewed them here
To lend our relics, sacred, dear,
Their beautiful perfume.

The scent abides on book and lute,
On curl and flower, and with its minute
But eloquent appeal
It wins from us a deeper sob
For our lost dead, a sharper throb
Than we are wont to feel.

It whispers of the “long ago”;
Its love, its loss, its aching woe,
And buried sorrows stir;
And tears like those we shed of old
Roll down our cheeks as we behold
Our faded lavender.

The Humbler Poets

THE MEETING

AFTER so long an absence
At last we meet again;
Does the meeting give us pleasure
Or does it give us pain?

The tree of life has been shaken,
And but few of us linger now,
Like the prophet’s two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.

We cordially greet each other
In the old familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!

We speak of a Merry Christmas,
And many a happy New Year;
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here,

We speak of friends and their fortunes,

And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.

And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

BREAK, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me

Oh, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
Oh well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

An the stately ships go on
To their heaven under the hill:
But oh: for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.