Good-Bye My Fancy!

Good-bye my Fancy!

Farewell dear mate, dear love!

I'm going away, I know not where,

Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,

So Good-bye my Fancy.

Now for my last-let me look back a moment;

The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,

Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.

Long have we lived, joy'd, caress'd together;

Delightful!-now separation-Good-bye my Fancy.

Yet let me not be too hasty,

Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really

blended into one;

Then if we die we die together, (yes,we'll remain one,)

If we go anywhere we'll be better off and blither, and learn something,

May-be it is yourself now really ushering me

to the true songs, (who knows?)

May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning

-so now finally,

Good-bye-and hail! my Fancy!

Whitman wrote this poem in 1891,a year before his death.