FAREWELL POEMS

Remembrance To Forget

at the edge of a branch
i once slipped off,
an invisible noose
held on to the remains
.....

Ekta Somera

The Farewell

It was a' for our rightfu' King
We left fair Scotland's strand;
It was a' for our rightfu' King
We e'er saw Irish land,
.....

Robert Burns

Because You Were A Fool

To my childhood love....
How many times we stared at one another,
We smiled babishly but scared to touch,
We sat at angles we'd glance at the other,
.....

Elizabeth Makori

Farewell Lines

"Hign bliss is only for a higher state,"
But, surely, if severe afflictions borne
With patience merit the reward of peace,
Peace ye deserve; and may the solid good,
.....

William Wordsworth

Michael: A Pastoral Poem

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
.....

William Wordsworth

Hope 93'

How old I was ?
Only my mum has an answer
Hope 93
Farewell to poverty
.....

Ola Olawale

My Heart's In The Highlands

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
.....

Robert Burns

Morning Express

Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white,
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light,
Offering themselves to morn's long, slanting arrows.
The train's due; porters trundle laden barrows.
.....

Siegfried Sassoon

Wonder

For failure I was well equipped
And should have come to grief,
By atavism grimly gripped,
A fool beyond belief.
.....

Robert Service

The Coolun

Ah, had you seen the Coolun,
Walking down by the cuckoo's street,
With the dew of the meadow shining
On her milk-white twinkling feet.
.....

Sir Samuel Ferguson

Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor!

Farewell, ungrateful traitor!
Farewell, my perjur'd swain!
Let never injur'd woman
Believe a man again.
.....

John Dryden

Farewell

Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever;
Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
Farewell to the miller's brook and his three bonny daughters;
.....

John Clare

Farewell, Thou Stream.

Air - "Nancy's to the greenwood gane."


I.
.....

Robert Burns

Venus And Adonis

Even as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
.....

William Shakespeare

The Trail Of Ninety-eight

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!
.....

Robert Service

Very Many People

On the Downs, in the Weald, on the Marshes,
I heard the Old Gods say:
"Here come Very Many People:
"We must go away.
.....

Rudyard Kipling

The School At War

All night before the brink of death
In fitful sleep the army lay,
For through the dream that stilled their breath
Too gauntly glared the coming day.
.....

Henry Newbolt

Elegy Ii. On Posthumous Reputation - To A Friend

O grief of griefs! that Envy's frantic ire
Should rob the living virtue of its praise;
O foolish Muses! that with zeal aspire
To deck the cold insensate shrine with bays.
.....

William Shenstone

My Last Farewell To Stirling

Nae lark in transport mounts the sky
Or leaves wi' early plaintive cry,
But I will bid a last good-bye,
My last farewell to Stirling O.
.....

Robert Burns

Songs Set To Music: 1. Set By Mr. Abel

Reading ends in melancholy,
Wine breeds vices and diseases,
Wealth is but care, and love but folly,
Only friendship truly pleases.
.....

Matthew Prior

The Poplar Field

The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
.....

William Cowper

Paradise Lost: Book 01

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
.....

John Milton

A True Account Of Talking To The Sun On Fire Island

y! I've been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don't be so rude, you are
only the second poet I've ever chosen
.....

Frank O'hara

Summer Images

Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd,
A wild and giddy thing,
.....

John Clare

Aeschylos And Sophocles

Sophocles: Thou goest then, and leavest none behind Worthy to rival thee!

Aeschylos: Nay, say not so.
Whose is the hand that now is pressing mine?
.....

Walter Savage Landor

The Songs Of Selma

ARGUMENTAddress to the evening star:

An apostrophe to Fingal and his times. Minonasings before the king the song of the unfortunate Colma; and the bards exhibit other specimens of their poetical talents; according to an annual custom established by the monarchs of the ancient Caledonians.

.....

James Macpherson

The Witch Of Wenham

I.
Along Crane River's sunny slopes
Blew warm the winds of May,
And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks
.....

John Greenleaf Whittier

True Love

Farewell, Earl Richard,
Tender and brave;
Kneeling I kiss
The dust from thy grave.
.....

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Leo

I made a journey o'er the sea,
I bade my faithful dog good-bye,
I knew that he would grieve for me,
But did not dream that he would die!
.....

John L. Stoddard

Terence Macswiney

See, though the oil be low more purely still and higher
The flame burns in the body's lamp! The watchers still
Gaze with unseeing eyes while the Promethean Will,
The Uncreated Light, the Everlasting Fire
.....

'æ,' George William Russell

Sonnets To The Sundry Notes Of Music

I.
IT was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three,
That liked of her master as well as well might be,
Till looking on an Englishman, the fair'st that eye could see,
.....

William Shakespeare

The Hunting Of The Snark

Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
.....

Lewis Carroll

The Two Shades.

Along that gloomy river's brim,
Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,
Stood lingering on the dismal shore.
.....

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Song Of Death.

Air - "Oran an Aoig."


Scene - A field of battle. Time of the day, evening. The wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following song:
.....

Robert Burns

Have A Nice Day

'Help, help, ' said a man. 'I'm drowning.'
'Hang on, ' said a man from the shore.
'Help, help, ' said the man. 'I'm not clowning.'
'Yes, I know, I heard you before.
.....

Spike Milligan

The Outcast

I.

Far, far away, where sunsets weave
Their golden tissues o'er the scene,
.....

Sam G. Goodrich

A Farewell

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.
.....

Charles Kingsley

Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
.....

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Bring Flowers

Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd;
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
Their breath floats out on the southern gale,
.....

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Tamerlane - Early Version

I.

I have sent for thee, holy friar;1
But 'twas not with the drunken hope,
.....

Edgar Allan Poe

Me-stew

I have nothing to put in my stew, you see,
Not a bone or a bean or a black-eyed pea,
So I'll just climb in the pot to see
If I can make a stew out of me.
.....

Shel Silverstein

To An Absentee

O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea,
Through all the miles that stretch between,
My thought must fly to rest on thee,
And would, though worlds should intervene.
.....

Thomas Hood

The Two Shades

Along that gloomy river's brim,
Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,
Stood lingering on the dismal shore.
.....

Sam G. Goodrich

The Ship Of Death

I

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

David Herbert Lawrence

The Poetic Principle (essay)

In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags fails a revulsion ensues and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.

.....

Edgar Allan Poe

Pieta

A year ago you came
Early into the light.
You lived a day and night,
Then died; no one to blame.
.....

James Phillip Mcauley

The Rattling Boy From Dublin

I'm a rattling boy from Dublin town,
I courted a girl called Biddy Brown,
Her eyes they were as black as sloes,
She had black hair and an aquiline nose.
.....

William Topaz Mcgonagall

No. 101 (on His Brother's Death)

By ways remote and distant waters sped,
Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come,
That I may give the last gifts to the dead,
And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb:
.....

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Barbara Allen's Cruelty

In Scarlet towne, where I was borne,
There was a faire maid dwellin,
Made every youth crye, wel-awaye!
Her name was Barbara Allen.
.....

Thomas Percy

Ode To Golf

‘Delusive Nymph, farewell!'
How oft we've said or sung,
When balls evasive fell,
Or in the jaws of ‘Hell,'
.....

Andrew Lang