| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | The Adieu | | By William Robert Spencer (1770–1834) |
| | | MORAVIANS their minstrelsy bring | |
| The death-bed with music to smooth: | |
| So you, lovely comforter, sing | |
| My pangs of departure to soothe! | |
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| You sing—but my silent adieu | 5 |
| A sorrow still keener will prove: | |
| You lose but one friend who loves you, | |
| How many I lose whom I love! | |
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| When we go from each pleasure refined, | |
| Which the sense or the soul can receive | 10 |
| With no hope in our wanderings to find | |
| One ray of the sunshine we leave: | |
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| An adieu should in utterance die, | |
| Or if written, but faintly appear; | |
| Only heard thro’ the burst of a sigh, | 15 |
| Only read thro’ the blot of a tear! | | | | |
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