Read "Saying Good-Bye" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(SONG)
WE are always saying / "Good-bye, good-bye! " / In work, in playing, / In gloom, in gaying: / At many a stage / Of pilgrimage / From youth to age / We say, "Good-bye, / Good-bye!"
We are undiscerning / Which go to sigh, / Which will be yearning / For soon returning; / And which no more / Will dark our door, / Or tread our shore, / But go to die, / To die.
Some come from roaming / With joy again; / Some, who come homing / By stealth at gloaming, / Had better have stopped / Till death, and dropped / By strange hands propped, / Than come so fain, / So fain.
So, with this saying, / "Good-bye, good-bye," / We speed their waying / Without betraying / Our grief, our fear / No more to hear / From them, close, clear, / Again: "Good-bye, / Good-bye! "