Good-Bye
Good-Bye
Original Text
Poems< (1846: London: Chapman, 1847).
PS 1624 .A1 Robarts Library
1Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
2Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
3Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
4A river-ark on the ocean brine,
5Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
6But now, proud world! I'm going home.
7Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
8To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
9To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
10To supple Office, low and high;
11To crowded halls, to court and street;
12To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
13To those who go, and those who come;
14Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.
15I am going to my own hearth-stone,
16Bosomed in yon green hills alone, --
17A secret nook in a pleasant land,
18Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
19Where arches green, the livelong day,
21And vulgar feet have never trod
22A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
24I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
25And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
26Where the evening star so holy shines,
27I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
29For what are they all, in their high conceit,
Notes
20] roundelay: lyric song with refrain. Back to Line
23] sylvan: forest. Back to Line
28] sophist: characterized by weak reasoning. Back to Line
30] in the bush: God spoke to Moses on mount Horeb out of a burning bush (Exodus 3.2). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme