Famous Going Away Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Going Away poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous going away poems. These examples illustrate what a famous going away poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Boy ScoutsPatrol Song

...jolly well must look out!


Look out, when you start for the day
 That your kit is packed to your mind;
There is no use going away 
 With half of it left behind.
Look out that your laces are tight,
 And your boots are easy and stout,
Or you'll end with a blister at night.
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!


Look out for the birds of the air,
 Look out for the beasts of the field--
They'll tell you how and where
 The other side's concealed.
When the blackbird bolts from the copse...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard


A Prodigal

...ight,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern--like the sun, going away--
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make up his mind to go home....Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

A Waltz-Quadrille

...cked in their bright array;
And back and forth to the music’s rhyme
We moved together, and all the time
I knew you were going away.

The fold of your strong arm sent a thrill
From heart to brain as we gently glided
Like leaves on the wave of that waltz-quadrille;
Parted, met, and again divided –
You drifting one way, and I another,
Then suddenly turning and facing each other,
Then off in the blithe chasse.
Then airily back to our places swaying,
While every beat of the music ...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Anashuya And Vijaya

...ears;
While we alone have round us woven woods,
And feel the softness of each other's hand,
Amrita, while --

Anashuya [going away from him].
 Ah me! you love another,
 [Bursting into tears.]
And may some sudden dreadful ill befall her!

Vijaya. I loved another; now I love no other.
Among the mouldering of ancient woods
You live, and on the village border she,
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
I saw her standing in her door but now.

Anashuya. Vijaya, swear to love h...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Before you are made drunk by the cup of death, before

...the revolutions of time are full behind you, endeavor
to make a foundation here below, for you will profit
nothing by going away empty-handed....Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar


Death of the Bird

...ar a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.

And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest,
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart's possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.

The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Bl...Read more of this...
by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)

Departure

...ining so bright, big Sun, 
And why is the garden so gay?
Do you know that my days of delight are done,
Do you know I am going away?
If you covered your face with a cloud, I 'd dream
You were sorry for me in my pain,
And the heads of the flowers all bowed would seem
To be weeping with me in the rain. 

But why is your head so low, sweet heart,
And why are your eyes overcast?
Are they clouded because you know we must part,
Do you think this embrace is our last?
Then kiss me aga...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

Dream Song 25: Henry edged decidedly made up stories

...s crampon focus,
wipe out his need. Reduce him to the rest of us.
-”But, Bones, you is that.

-”I cannot remember. I am going away.
There was something in my dream about a Cat,
which fought and sang.
Something about a lyre, an island. Unstrung.
Linked to the land at low tide. Cables fray.
Thank you for everything....Read more of this...
by Berryman, John

Going Away

...Walking to-day on the Common, 
I heard a stranger say
To a friend who was standing near him, 
'Do you know I am going away? '
I had never seen their faces, 
May never see them again; 
Yet the words the stranger uttered, 
Stirred me with nameless pain.

For I knew some heart would miss him, 
Would ache at his going away! 
And the earth would seem all cheerless
For many and many a day.
No matter how light my spirits, 
No matter how glad my heart, 
If I hear those two wo...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Johanna Sebus

...well."

"Remember us too! in what danger are we!

Thy fellow-lodger, and children three!

The trembling woman!--Thou'rt going away!"

She bears the mother across the spray.

"Quick! haste to the mound, and awhile there wait,

I'll soon return, and all will be straight.

The mound's close by, and safe from the wet;

But take my goat too, my darling pet!"

THE DAM DISSOLVES, THE ICE-PLAIN GROWLS,
THE FLOODS DASH ON, THE WATER HOWLS.

She places the mother safe on the shore;

Fa...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America

...my hand. The line felt like

sound. It was like an ambulance siren coming straight at

me, red light flashing, and then going away again and then

taking to the air and becoming an air-raid siren.

 The fish jumped a few more times and it still looked like

a frog, but it didn't have any legs. Then the fish grew tired

and sloppy, and I swung and splashed it up the surface of

the creek and into my net.

 The fish was a twelve-inch rainbow trout with a huge hump

on its back....Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Part 8 of Trout Fishing in America

...ry wor-

ried about it. The last time I was in San Francisco, he told

me he thought the odds were 10-1 in favor of him going away.

I told him to get a good lawyer. It appears that he followed

my advice and also was very lucky. That's always a good

combination.

 You asked about New York and New York is very hot.

 I'm visiting some friends, a young burglar and his wife.

He's unemployed and his wife is working as a cocktail wait-

ress. He's been looking for work but I fe...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Platonic

...Say, would you have thought it wrong? 

But I fought with my heart and conquered, 
I hid my wound from sight; 
You were going away in the morning, 
And I said a calm goodnight.
But now when I sit in the twilight, 
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic, 
Comes surging over me.
And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk, the dew; 
For the beautiful summer vanished, 
For the moonlight walks – and you....Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

The Bonnie Lass o Ruily

...with love-lit eyes,
While Harry's heart would heave with many love sighs.
At last, one night Belle said, "I hear you're going away."
Then Harry Lochton said, "'Tis true, Belie, and I must obey. 

But, my heather Belle, if you'll leave Ruily with me
I'll marry you, with your father's consent, immediately."
Then she put her arms around his neck and said, "Harry, I will."
Then Harry said, "You'll be a sailor's wife for good or ill." 

In five days after Belie got married to her ...Read more of this...
by McGonagall, William Topaz

The Red Son

...u for the little hills and the years all alike,
You with your patient cows and old houses
Protected from the rain,
I am going away and I never come back to you;
Crags and high rough places call me,
Great places of death
Where men go empty handed
And pass over smiling
To the star-drift on the horizon rim.
My last whisper shall be alone, unknown;
I shall go to the city and fight against it,
And make it give me passwords
Of luck and love, women worth dying for,
And money.
I go w...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Where We Live Now

...Only electricity on the loose, 
the television screaming at itself, 
the dishwasher tearing its heart out. 

11 

We're going away. The house 
is too warm. We disconnect 
the telephone. 

Bones, cans, broken dolls, bronzed shoes, 
ground down to face powder. Burn 
the toilet paper collected in the basement. 

Take back the bottles. 
The back stairs are raining glass. 
Cancel the milk. 

12 

You may go now, says Cupboard. 
I won't talk, 
says Clock. 

Your bag is black and wa...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

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