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1837–1909

I.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by; To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us Goodnight and goodbye.

A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh; But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye? We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus;

What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die? We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us Goodnight and goodbye.

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I. · Algernon Charles Swinburne · Poetry Cove