"Fare-Thee-Well"

"Fare-Thee-Well"

She never said “good-by,” but “fare-thee-well” —
       “It is a sweeter word,” she said;
We thought of it with tears that bitter day
       She lay before us dead.

The eyelids fell and shut the love-light in,
       So constant thro’ all gladness and all tears,
And though we spake so low, it seemed as if
       She smiled, as one that hears.

The lashes drew a curving shadow on
       The frozen languor of her cheek;
And still we listened, for it seemed as if
       The tender lips must speak.

Yea, though she wore upon her quiet brow
       The pale bloom of the asphodel,
It seemed as if her sweet, sweet lips must part

       And murmur “fare-thee-well.”

"Fare-Thee-Well" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).