Famous Goodbye Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Goodbye poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous goodbye poems. These examples illustrate what a famous goodbye poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Silverstein, Shel
...make it, he's gotta be tough
and I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I gave you that name and I said 'Goodbye'.
I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's
that name that helped to make you strong."
Yeah, he said, "Now you have just fought one
helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you've
got the right to kill me now and I wouldn't blame you
if you do. But you ought to thank me
before I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit
in ...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...so whitely unbuffeted?
They propped his jaw with a book until it stiffened
And folded his hands, that were shaking: goodbye, goodbye.
Now the washed sheets fly in the sun,
The pillow cases are sweetening.
It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
The long coffin of soap-colored oak,
The curious bearers and the raw date
Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.
(5)
The gray sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
Run fold upon fold far off,...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...certain books. So the hours spent in vain
Were minutes blown up into comic-book balloons full
Of Keats's odes. "Goodbye, kid." Tears streamed down
The boy's face. It was a great feeling,
Like the feeling you get when you throw things away
After a funeral: clean and empty in the morning dark.
There was no time for locker-room oratory.
They knew they were facing a do-or-die situation,
With their backs to the wall, and no tomorrow....Read more of this...
by
Collins, Billy
...the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of y...Read more of this...
by
Milligan, Spike
...Go away girl, go away
and let me pack my dreams
Now where did I put those yesteryears
made up with broken seams
Where shall I sweep the pieces
my God they still look new
There's a taxi waiting at the door
but there's only room for you...Read more of this...
by
Milligan, Spike
...se. 'I think I'm going to die.'
'Farewell, ' said the man who was drowning.
Said the man with the disease, 'goodbye.'
So the man who was drowning, drownded
And the man with the disease past away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It's been a very nice day....Read more of this...
by
Cohen, Leonard
...u,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way t...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...poverty
of our lives, irritable baggage clerks,
nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the
buses waving goodbye,
nor other millions of the poor rushing around from
city to city to see their loved ones,
nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop
by the Coke machine,
nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last
trip of her life,
nor the red-capped cynical porter collecting his quar-
ters and smiling over the smashed baggage,
nor...Read more of this...
by
John, David St
...ck
Of the Cadillac, and reaching to shake my hand
Through the open driver's window, said,
My man, Jordan... Goodbye....Read more of this...
by
Shakur, Tupac
...lost than 2 not love at all
in the morning i may wake 2 smile or maybe 2 cry
but first to those of my past i must say goodbye ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...that count, the ones I owe my job to.”
We nattered on and on until by way of adieu I read the final couplet
Of my Goodbye poem, the lines about ‘One Leeds Jimmy who could fix the world’s.
Duhigs once and for all/Write them into the ground and still have a hundred
Lyrics in his quiver.’
Pete Stifled a cough which dipped into a gurgle and sank into a mire
Of strangulated affect which almost became a convulsion until finally
He shrieked, “I have to go, the c...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...flowers,
joked with your nurses, as if I
were the balm among lepers,
as if I could undo
a life in hours
if I never said goodbye.
But you turned old,
all your fifty-eight years sliding
like masks from your skull;
and at the end
I packed your nightgowns in suitcases,
paid the nurses, came riding
home as if I'd been told
I could pretend
people live in places.
3.
Since then I have pretended ease,
loved with the trickeries of need, but not enough
to shed my daughterho...Read more of this...
by
Masefield, John
...e or sham
That book of Christ, Whose priest I am;
The Bible is a lie, say you,
where do you stand, suppose it true?
Goodbye. But if you've more to say
My doors are open night and day.
Meanwhile, my friend, 'twould be no sin
To mix more water in your gin.
We're neither saints nor Philip Sidneys,
But mortal men with mortal kidneys."
He took his snuff, and wheezed a greeting,
And waddled off to mother's meeting;
I hung my head upon my chest,
I give...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
and a collie supervises.
Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.
Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens' feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;
the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whit...Read more of this...
by
Miller, Alice Duer
...s, you're right.'
The other answered, 'It really might.'
XIX
Dear John: I'm going home. I write to say
Goodbye. My boat-train leaves at break of day;
It will be gone when this is in your hands.
I've had enough of lovely foreign lands,
Sightseeing, strangers, holiday and play;
I'm going home to those who think the way
I think, and speak as I do. Will you try
To understand that this must be good-bye?
We both rooted deeply in the soil
Of our o...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...prodigal in what lacks me.
THIRD VOICE:
She is a small island, asleep and peaceful,
And I am a white ship hooting: Goodbye, goodbye.
The day is blazing. It is very mournful.
The flowers in this room are red and tropical.
They have lived behind glass all their lives, they have been cared for
tenderly.
Now they face a winter of white sheets, white faces.
There is very little to go into my suitcase.
There are the clothes of a fat woman I do not...Read more of this...
by
Pastan, Linda
...tance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye....Read more of this...
by
Twain, Mark
...rt thoult have a place,
Among the friends held dear,-
Nor shall the hand of Time efface
The memories written there.
Goodbye,
S.L.C....Read more of this...
by
Borges, Jorge Luis
...e are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.
The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.
Memory does not stamp his own coin.
However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans....Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ummer garden festooned
We didn't know that in parting sadness
We'd be looking back soon.
x x x
To say goodbye we don't know -
It's already nearing night,
We are walking shoulder to shoulder,
You are pensive and I am quiet
We'll walk into church, we'll witness
The singing, the wedding, the cross,
Not seeing each other, we'll exit..
Why are things not working for us?
Or we'll sit on the pressed-down snow
In a cemetery, lightly sigh,
And y...Read more of this...
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