Poems for a retirement card, a leaving do or the end of a farewell speech. Some look forward (Whitman setting out on the open road, Yeats going to Innisfree), some look back with satisfaction (Landor's four-line Finis), and Tennyson's Ulysses is for anyone who does not intend to slow down. Robert Burns's John Anderson, My Jo suits a couple retiring together. Every poem is in the public domain and copied word for word from the original book, so you can print it in a card or read it aloud.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art:I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,Strong and content I travel the open road.
Under the wide and starry skyDig the grave and let me lie:Glad did I live and gladly die,And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me:Here he lies where he long’d to be;Home is the sailor, home from sea,And the hunter home from the hill.
John Anderson, my jo, John,When we were first acquent;Your locks were like the raven,Your bonie brow was brent;But now your brow is beld, John,Your locks are like the snaw;But blessings on your frosty pow,John Anderson, my jo.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness—Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,Jumping from the chair she sat in;Time, you thief, who love to getSweets into your list, put that in!Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,Say I’m growing old, but add,Jenny kiss’d me.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And never brought to mind?Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And auld lang syne!Chorus.—For auld lang syne, my dear,For auld lang syne.We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,For auld lang syne.
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