When You Go Away
When you go away, my friend,
When you say your last good-bye,
Then the summer time will end,
And the winter will be nigh.
Though the green grass decks the heather,
And the birds sing all the day,
There will be no summer weather
After you have gone away.
When I look into your eyes,
I shall thrill with deepest pain,
Thinking that beneath the skies
I may never look again.
You will feel a moment’s sorrow,
I shall feel a lasting grief;
You forgetting on the morrow,
I to mourn with no relief.
When we say the last sad word,
And you are no longer near,
And the winds and all the birds
Cannot keep the summer here,
Life will lose its full completeness—
Lose it not for you, but me;
All the beauty and the sweetness
Each can hold, I shall not see.
Other works by Ella Wheeler Wilcox...
