The Poetry Corner

Without Ceremony

By Thomas Hardy

It was your way, my dear, To be gone without a word When callers, friends, or kin Had left, and I hastened in To rejoin you, as I inferred. And when you'd a mind to career Off anywhere say to town - You were all on a sudden gone Before I had thought thereon, Or noticed your trunks were down. So, now that you disappear For ever in that swift style, Your meaning seems to me Just as it used to be: "Good-bye is not worth while!"