Walking to-day on the Common, <br /> I heard a stranger say <br />To a friend who was standing near him, <br /> 'Do you know I am going away? ' <br />I had never seen their faces, <br /> May never see them again; <br />Yet the words the stranger uttered, <br /> Stirred me with nameless pain. <br /> <br />For I knew some heart would miss him, <br /> Would ache at his going away! <br />And the earth would seem all cheerless <br /> For many and many a day. <br />No matter how light my spirits, <br /> No matter how glad my heart, <br />If I hear those two words spoken, <br /> The teardrops always start. <br /> <br />They are so sad and solemn, <br /> So full of a lonely sound; <br />Like dead leaves rustling downward, <br /> And dropping upon the ground, <br />Oh, I pity the naked branches, <br /> When the skies are dull and gray, <br />And the last leaf whispers softly, <br /> 'Good-bye, I am going away.' <br /> <br />In the dreary, dripping autumn, <br /> The wings of the flying birds, <br />As they soar away to the south land, <br /> Seem always to say those words. <br />Wherever they may be spoken, <br /> They fall with a sob and a sigh; <br />And heartaches follow the sentence, <br /> 'I am going away, Good-bye.' <br /> <br />O God, in Thy blessed kingdom, <br /> No lips shall ever say, <br />No ears shall ever harken <br /> To the words 'I am going away.' <br />For no soul ever wearies <br /> Of the dear, bright angel land, <br />And no saint ever wanders <br /> From the sunny golden land.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/going-away/
