There are veils that lift, there are bars that fall,
There are lights that beckon and winds that call—
Goodbye!
There are hurrying feet, and we dare not wait;
For the hour is on us, the hour of Fate,
The circling hour of the flaming Gate—
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!
Fair, fair they shine through the burning zone,
Those rainbow gleams of a world unknown—
Goodbye!
And oh, to follow, to seek, to dare,
When step by step in the evening air
Floats down to meet us the cloudy stair—
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!
The cloudy stair of the Brig o’ Dread
Is the dizzy path that our feet must tread—
Goodbye!
O all ye children of Nights and Days
That gather and wonder and stand at gaze,
And wheeling stars in your lonely ways—
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!
The music calls and the Gates unclose,
Onward and upward the wild way goes—
Goodbye!
We die in the bliss of a great new birth.
O fading phantoms of pain and mirth,
O fading loves of the old green Earth,
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!