Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GOOD-BYE, by RALPH WALDO EMERSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GOOD-BYE, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home
Last Line: When man in the bush with god may meet?
Variant Title(s): Goodbye
Subject(s): God; Home; Religion; Solitude; Theology; Loneliness


GOOD-BYE, proud world, I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, --
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the bride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?




Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net