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!”
ON THE TUNE CALLED THE OLD-HUNDRED-AND-FOURTH
We never sang together
Ravenscroft’s terse old tune
On Sundays or on weekdays,
In sharp or summer weather,
At night-time or at noon.
Why did we never sing it,
Why never so incline
On Sundays or on weekdays,
Even when soft wafts would wing it
From your far floor to mine?
Shall we that tune, then, never
Stand voicing side by side
On Sundays or on weekdays? . . .
Or shall we, when for ever
In Sheol we abide,
Sing it in desolation,
As we might long have done
On Sundays or on weekdays
With love and exultation
Before our sands had run?