| |
| AS one who follows a departing friend, | |
| Destined to cross the great, dividing sea, | |
| I watch and follow these departing days, | |
| That go so grandly, lifting up their crowns | |
| Still regal, though their victor Autumn comes. | 5 |
| Gifts they bestow, which I accept, return, | |
| As gifts exchanged between a loving pair, | |
| Who may possess them as memorials | |
| Of pleasures ended by the shadow—Death. | |
| What matter which shall vanish hence, if both | 10 |
| Are transitory—me, and these bright hours— | |
| And of the future ignorant alike? | |
| From all our social thralls I would be free. | |
| Let care go down the wind—as hounds afar, | |
| Within their kennels baying unseen foes, | 15 |
| Give to calm sleepers only calmer dreams. | |
| Here will I rest alone: the morning mist | |
| Conceals no form but mine; the evening dew | |
| Freshens but faded flowers and my worn face. | |
| When the noon basks among the wooded hills | 20 |
| I too will bask, as silent as the air | |
| So thick with sun-motes, dyed like yellow gold, | |
| Or colored purple like an unplucked plum. | |
| The thrush, now lonesome, for her young have flown, | |
| May flutter her brown wings across my path; | 25 |
| And creatures of the sod with brilliant eyes | |
| May leap beside me, and familiar grow. | |
| The moon shall rise among her floating clouds, | |
| Black, vaporous fans, and crinkled globes of pearl, | |
| And her sweet silver light be given to me. | 30 |
| To watch and follow these departing days | |
| Must be my choice; and let me mated be | |
| With Solitude; may memory and hope | |
| Unite to give me faith that nothing dies; | |
| To show me always, what I pray to know, | 35 |
| That man alone may speak the word—Farewell. | |
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