Read "After the Supper and Talk" by Walt Whitman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
After the supper and talk-after the day is done, As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating, (So hard for his hand to release those hands-no more will they meet, No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance-seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, E'en at the exit-door turning-charges superfluous calling back-e'en as he descends the steps, Something to eke out a minute additional-shadows of nightfall deepening, Farewells, messages lessening-dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form, Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness-loth, O so loth to depart!
Garrulous to the very last.
[1888]