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Home  »  The Poetical Works In Four Volumes  »  A Farewell

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Appendix II. Poems Printed in the ‘Life of Whittier’

A Farewell

  • [Written for Mr. and Mrs. Claflin as they were about to sail to Europe.]


  • WHAT shall I say, dear friends, to whom I owe

    The choicest blessings, dropping from the hands

    Of trustful love and friendship, as you go

    Forth on your journey to those older lands,

    By saint and sage and bard and hero trod?

    Scarcely the simple farewell of the Friends

    Sufficeth; after you my full heart sends

    Such benediction as the pilgrim hears

    Where the Greek faith its golden dome uprears,

    From Crimea’s roses to Archangel snows,

    The fittest prayer of parting: “Go with God!”