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Departure

Topics: classic

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)     While the far farewell music thins and fails,     And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -     All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -     And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,     Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,     Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men     To seeming words that ask and ask again:     "How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels     Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,     That are as puppets in a playing hand? -     When shall the saner softer polities     Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,     And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand     Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"

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"(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)..."

Thomas Hardy's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "Departure"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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