Careful Words

parting (n.)

Parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till—'t is gone, and all is gray.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 29.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.

  We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit!

Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. P. 62.

True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest,—

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 83.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

  Stood at the parting of the way.

Old Testament: Ezekiel xxi. 21.

  We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757): Love's Last Shift. Act iv.

Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!

If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;

If not, why then this parting was well made.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act v. Sc. 1.