Famous Long Farewell Poems

Famous Long Farewell Poems. Long Farewell Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Farewell long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 Strephon. 

You Gote-heard Gods, that loue the grassie mountaines, 
You Nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies, 
You Satyrs ioyde with free and quiet forests, 
Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique, 
Which to my woes giues still an early morning; 
And drawes the dolor on till wery euening. 

Klaius. 

O Mercurie, foregoer to the euening, 
O heauenlie huntresse of the sauage mountaines, 
O louelie starre, entitled of the morning, 
While that my voice doth fill these wofull vallies, 
Vouchsafe your silent eares to plaining musique, 
Which oft hath Echo tir'd in secrete forrests. 

Strephon. 

I that was once free-burges of the forrests, 
Where shade from Sunne, and sports I sought at euening, 
I that was once esteem'd for pleasant musique, 
Am banisht now among the monstrous mountaines 
Of huge despaire, and foule afflictions vallies, 
Am growne a shrich-owle to my selfe each morning. 

Klaius. 

I that was once delighted euery morning, 
Hunting the wilde inhabiters of forrests, 
I that was once the musique of these vallies, 
So darkened am, that all my day is euening, 
Hart-broken so, that molehilles seeme high mountaines, 
And fill the vales with cries in steed of musique. 

Strephon. 

Long since alas, my...
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 Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves,
And harps of gold, where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the heights,
The wind was moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread,
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale,
And men looked up with faces pale.
The dragon's ire, more fierce than fire,
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon.
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled the hall to dying...
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 When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring,
To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before,
They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring
With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", and a rip and a skip and a roar.
For the spree of Spring is a sacred thing, and the boys must have their fun;
Packer and tracker and half-breed Cree, from the boat to the bar they leap;
And then when the long flotilla goes, and the last of their pay is done,
The boys from the banks of Lac Labiche swing to the heavy sweep.
And oh, how they sigh! and their throats are dry, and sorry are they and sick:
Yet there's none so cursed with a lime-kiln thirst as that Athabaska Dick.

He was long and slim and lean of limb, but strong as a stripling bear;
And by the right of his skill and might he guided the Long Brigade.
All water-wise were his laughing eyes, and he steered with a careless care,
And he shunned the shock of foam and rock, till they came to the Big Cascade.
And here they must make the long...
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 I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'

IV

'Yet farewell so,' he answered; --'the sunstroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

V

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?

VI

'But I,' he replied, 'have promised another, when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.'

VII

'Why, that,' she said, 'is no reason. Love's always free I am told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?

VIII

'But you,' he replied, 'have a daughter, a young child, who was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid."

IX

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. The angels...
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  IV. — TO THE WORLD.                  A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, virtuous and noble.   My part is ended on thy stage.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> Do not once hope that thou canst tempt    A spirit so resolv'd to tread Upon thy throat, and live exempt    From all the nets that thou canst spread.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know thy forms are studied arts,    Thy subtle ways be narrow straits ;luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know too, though thou strut and paint,    Yet art thou both shrunk up, and old, That only fools make thee a saint,    And all thy good is to be sold.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know thou whole are but a shop    Of toys and trifles, traps and snares, To take the weak, or make them stop :    Yet art thou falser than thy wares.  And, knowing this, should I yet stay,    Like such as blow away their lives, And never will redeem a day,    Enamour'd of their golden gyves ?luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> Or having 'scaped shall I return,    And thrust my neck into the noose, From whence so lately, I did burn,    With all my powers, myself to loose ?luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> What bird, or beast...
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 Part One - The Calling


Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and 
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; 
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and 
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; 
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume, 
And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead. 


Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired; 
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit; 
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart. 


Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for 
It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests. 


Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers 
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn. 
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light 
Between my bed and the infinite; 
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of 
Her white wings. 


Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips. 
Let...
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 1
TO conclude—I announce what comes after me; 
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart. 

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, 
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations. 

When America does what was promis’d,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard, 
When through These States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, 
When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, 
When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, 
Then to me and mine our due fruition.

I have press’d through in my own right, 
I have sung the Body and the Soul—War and Peace have I sung, 
And the songs of Life and of Birth—and shown that there are many births: 
I have offer’d my style to everyone—I have journey’d with confident step; 
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!
And take the young woman’s hand, and the young man’s hand, for the last time. 

2
I announce natural persons to arise; 
I announce justice triumphant; 
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality; 
I announce the justification of candor, and the justification of pride.

I announce that the identity of...
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 I

Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, 
Commemorative of our soldier dead, 
When -- with sweet flowers of our New England May 
Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray -- 
Their graves in every town are garlanded, 
That pious tribute should be given too 
To our intrepid few 
Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas. 
Those to preserve their country's greatness died; 
But by the death of these 
Something that we can look upon with pride 
Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied 
Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make 
That from a war where Freedom was at stake 
America withheld and, daunted, stood aside. 

II 

Be they remembered here with each reviving spring, 
Not only that in May, when life is loveliest, 
Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest 
Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering, 
In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt, 
Parted impetuous to their first assault; 
But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too 
To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew 
With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose 
The cenotaph of those 
Who in the cause that history most endears 
Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years....
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 England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart
As any thund'rer there. And I can feel
Thy follies, too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the land I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight; when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In ev'ry clime, and...
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 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down by his bedside,
And then told him to be honest whatever did betide. 

John, he said, looking him earnestly in the face,
Never let your actions your name disgrace,
Remember, my dear boy, and do what's right,
And God will bless you by day and night. 

Then Mr Honest bade his son farewell, and breathed his last,
While the hot tears from Jack's eyes fell thick and fast;
And the poor child did loudly sob and moan,
When he knew his father had left him and his mother alone. 

So, as time wore on, Jack grew to be a fine boy,
And was to his mother a help and joy;
And, one evening, she said, Jack, you are my only prop,
I must tell you, dear, I'm thinking about opening a shop. 

Oh! that's a capital thought, mother, cried Jack,
And to take care of the shop I won't be slack;
Then...
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 I 

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit 
and the long journey towards oblivion. 

The apples falling like great drops of dew 
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves. 

And it is time to go, to bid farewell 
to one's own self, and find an exit 
from the fallen self. 

II 

Have you built your ship of death, O have you? 
O build your ship of death, for you will need it. 

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall 
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth. 

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes! 
Ah! can't you smell it? 
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul 
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold 
that blows upon it through the orifices. 

III 

And can a man his own quietus make 
with a bare bodkin? 

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make 
a bruise or break of exit for his life; 
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus? 

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder 
ever a quietus make? 

IV 

O let us talk of quiet that we know, 
that we can know, the deep and...
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 'Twas in the village of Ruily there lived a bonnie lass
With red, pouting lips which few lasses could surpass,
And her eyes were as azure the blue sky,
Which caused Donald McNeill to heave many a love sigh 

Beyond the township of Ruily she never had been,
This pretty maid with tiny feet and aged eighteen;
And when Donald would ask her to be his wife,
"No," she would say, "I'm not going to stay here all my life." 

"I'm sick of this life," she said to Donald one day,
"By making the parridge and carrying peats from the bog far away."
"Then marry me, Belle, and peats you shall never carry again,
And we might take a trip to Glasgow and there remain." 

Then she answered him crossly, "I wish you wouldn't bother me,
For I'm tired of this kind of talk, as you may see."
So at last there came a steamer to Ruily one day,
So big that if almost seemed to fill the bay. 

Then Belle and Effie Mackinnon came to the door with a start,
While Belle's red, pouting lips were wide apart;
But when she saw the Redcoats coming ashore
She thought she had never seen such splendid men before. 

One day after the steamer "Resistless" had...
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 In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon

In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer.

In haste he'd flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
In these campaigning years.

'Twas time to be Good-bying,
Since the assembly-hour was nighing
In royal George's town at six that morn;
And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing
Ere ring of bugle-horn.

"I've laid in food, Dear,
And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;
And if our July hope should antedate,
Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,
And fetch assistance straight.

"As for Buonaparte, forget him;
He's not like to land! But let him,
Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!
And the war-boats built to float him; 'twere but wanted to upset him
A slat from Nelson's...
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 A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden;
around that the forest. Anashuya, the young priestess, kneeling
within the temple.

Anashuya. Send peace on all the lands and flickering
corn. -
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other. - Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful. - And if he love another,
May panthers end him. - Hear, and load our king
With wisdom hour by hour. - May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from the other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

Vijaya [entering and throwing a lily at her]. Hail! hail, my
Anashuya.

Anashuya. No: be still.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
prayers for the land.

Vijaya. I will wait here, Amrita.

Anashuya. By mighty Brahma's ever-rustling robe,
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!
Another fills your mind.

Vijaya. My mother's name.

Anashuya [sings, coming out of the temple].
A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:
Sigh, O you little stars.! O sigh and shake your blue apparel!
The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:
Sing, O you little stars.! O sing and raise your rapturous
 carol
To mighty Brahma, be who made you many as the sands,
And laid you on the...
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 Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born; 
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn. 
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, 
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own; 
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill, 
But, east or west, in foreign lands, I recollect them still. 
I leave my warm heart with you, tho' my back I'm forced to turn 
Adieu to Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

No more on pleasant evenings we'll saunter down the Mall, 
When the trout is rising to the fly, the salmon to the fall. 
The boat comes straining on her net, and heavily she creeps,
Cast off, cast off - she feels the oars, and to her berth she sweeps; 
Now fore and aft keep hauling, and gathering up the clew. 
Till a silver wave of salmon rolls in among the crew. 
Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit, and many a joke and 'yarn'
Adieu to Belashanny; and the winding banks of Erne! 

The music of the waterfall, the mirror of the tide,
When all the green-hill'd harbour is full...
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