Poetry Friday - Good-by

This has been a tough week. Lots of emotional situations, too much loss. In addition to the death of my former student from Haiti, my local community has also suffered the loss of a cross-country coach and junior high teacher from ECS, a nearby Christian School. The students, staff, parents are all reeling from shock. The situation was incredible! He was returning from a running event, driving a van load of students (no other adult), came to a stop sign/light, and collapsed. Students shut off the engine and got help for their teacher. That was last week. This week, Tuesday evening, their beloved coach left this world for the life he constantly talked about in heaven. This particular school is our biggest rival for athletics. This week we have really tried to be supportive and caring. Our students have been terribly sad for the kids at ECS. So this week's poem is in honor of Mr. Newman, may he truly rest in God's peace.


Good-by by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone
Bosomed in yon green hills, alone,
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet.