A Farewell

By Harriet Monroe 1860–1936 Harriet Monroe

Good-bye!—no, do not grieve that it is over,

The perfect hour;

That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,

Flits from the flower.

Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying—

Yes, love and all.

Glad was the living—blessed be the dying.

Let the leaves fall.

“A Farewell” by Harriet Monroe, published in Poetry, 1936. Used by permission of Ann Monroe.

Source: Poetry (1936)

Biography

As founder and editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Harriet Monroe became instrumental in the "poetry renaissance" of the early twentieth century by managing a forum that allowed poets and poetry to gain American exposure. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Daniel J. Cahill and Laura Ingram wrote: "The abundant richness of this movement might well have been less spectacular without the encouragement and vitality which . . .

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