Famous Good Bye Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Good Bye poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous good bye poems. These examples illustrate what a famous good bye poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Henry Lawson
One day old Trooper Campbell
Rode out to Blackman's Run,
His cap-peak and his sabre
Were glancing in the sun.
'Twas New Year's Eve, and slowly
Across the ridges low
The sad Old Year was drifting
To where the old years go.
The trooper's mind was reading
The love-page of his life --
His love for Mary Wylie
Ere...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Now this was what Macpherson told
While waiting in the stand;
A reckless rider, over-bold,
The only man with hands to hold
The rushing Rio Grande.
He said, “This day I bid good-bye
To bit and bridle rein,
To ditches deep and fences high,
For I have dreamed a dream, and I
Shall never ride again.
“I dreamt last...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!
I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime
Of manhood who deal gently with me here;
Amid the happy people of my time
Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear
Numb...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My folks think I'm a serving maid
Each time I visit home;
They do not dream I ply a trade
As old as Greece or Rome;
For if they found I'd fouled their name
And was not white as snow,
I'm sure that they would die of shame . . .
Please, God, they'll never know.
I clean the paint from off my face,
In sober black I...Read more of this...
by
Walter de la Mare
The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye -
The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge,
The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing,
The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.
A hardening darkness glasses the haunted eye,
Shines into nothing the watcher's burnt-out candle,
Wreathes into scentless nothing the wasting incense,
Faints in the outer silence the hunting-cry.
Love of its...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.
...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
My little love, my darling,
You were a doorway to me;
You let me out of the confines
Into this strange countrie,
Where people are crowded like thistles,
Yet are shapely and comely to see.
My little love, my dearest
Twice have you issued me,
Once from your womb, sweet mother,
Once from myself, to be
Free of all hearts, my darling,
Of each...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
I. -- Red.
Would that my songs might be
What roses make by day and night --
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.
Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea -- say yea!
Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I
I took the clock down from the shelf;
"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
It lacked a minute of the hour,
And as I waited all a-cower,
A skinful of black, boding pain,
Bits of my life came back again. . . .
"Mother, there's nothing more to eat --
Why don't you go out on the street?
Always you sit and cry and cry;
Here at...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!
Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
One day He
tipped His top hat
and walked
out of the room,
ending the arguement.
He stomped off
saying:
I don't give guarentees.
I was left
quite alone
using up the darkenss.
I rolled up
my sweater,
up into a ball,
and took it
to bed with me,
a kind of stand-in
for God,
what washerwoman
who walks out
when you're clean
but not ironed.
When I woke up
the sweater
had turned to
bricks of gold.
I'd won the world
but like...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
O dear little cabin, I've loved you so long,
And now I must bid you good-bye!
I've filled you with laughter, I've thrilled you with song,
And sometimes I've wished I could cry.
Your walls they have witnessed a weariful fight,
And rung to a won Waterloo:
But oh, in my triumph I'm dreary to-night --
Good-bye, little cabin, to you!
Your roof is bewhiskered, your floor...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!
Never to bid good-bye
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word,...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Within a pub that's off the Strand and handy to the bar,
With pipe in mouth and mug in hand sat Jobson of the Star.
"Come, sit ye down, ye wond'ring wight, and have a yarn," says he.
"I can't," says I, "because to-night I'm off to Tripoli;
To Tripoli and Trebizond and Timbuctoo mayhap,
Or any magic name beyond I find upon the...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Eyes of grey -- a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
Sing, for Faith and Hope are high --
None so true as you and I --
Sing the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die!"
Eyes of black -- a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say,
Because I’d like to know that you’re all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark—
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you’ve...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
At night, when Passion's ebbing tide
Left bare the Sands of Truth,
Yasmini, resting by my side,
Spoke softly of her youth.
"And one" she said "was tall and slim,
Two crimson rose leaves made his mouth,
And I...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Bonnie Kilmany, in the County of Fife,
Is a healthy spot to reside in to lengthen one's life.
The scenery there in the summer time is truly grand,
Especially the beautiful hills and the woodland.
Chorus --
Then, bonnie Annie, will you go with me
And leave the crowded city of Dundee,
And breathe the pure, fragrant air
In the Howe of Kilmany, so lovely and...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1914-18
Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
For we've received orders to work to the eastward
Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
Until we strike something...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
What says the wind to the waving trees?
What says the wave to the river?
What means the sigh in the passing breeze?
Why do the rushes quiver?
Have you not heard the fainting cry
Of the flowers that said "Good-bye, good-bye"?
List how the gray dove moans and grieves
Under the woodland cover;
List to the drift of the falling leaves,
List to the wail of the lover.
Have...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
“HUSBAND, husband, cease your strife,
Nor longer idly rave, Sir;
Tho’ I am your wedded wife
Yet I am not your slave, Sir.”
“One of two must still obey,
Nancy, Nancy;
Is it Man or Woman, say,
My spouse Nancy?’
“If ’tis still the lordly word,
Service and obedience;
I’ll desert my sov’reign lord,
And so, good bye, allegiance!”
“Sad shall I be, so bereft,
...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
"Sic transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy!
Oh "veni, vidi, vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Here is a silence I had not hoped for
This side of paradise, I am an old believer
In nature’s bounty as God’s grace
To us poor mortals, fretting and fuming
At frustrated lust or the scent of fame
Coming too late to make a difference
Blue with white vertebrae of cloud forms
Riming the spectrum of green dark of poplars
Lined like soldiers, paler the...Read more of this...
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