Poem by Thomas Hardy

Saying Good-bye

      (Song)

We are always saying
‘Good-bye, good-bye!’
In work, in playing,
In gloom, in gaying:
At many a stage
Of pilgrimage
From youth to age
We say, ‘Good-bye,
Good-bye!’

We are undiscerning
Which go to sigh,
Which will be yearning
For soon returning;
And which no more
Will dark our door,
Or tread our shore,
But go to die,
To die.

Some come from roaming
With joy again;
Some, who come homing
By stealth at gloaming,
Had better have stopped
Till death, and dropped
By strange hands propped,
Than come so fain,
So fain.

So, with this saying,
‘Good-bye, good-bye,’
We speed their waying
Without betraying
Our grief, our fear
No more to hear
From them, close, clear,
Again: ‘Good-bye,
Good-bye!’

1. Over the Coffin
2. Genitrix Laesa
3. V.R. 1819–1901
4. Song from Heine
5. Song to an Old Burden

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