Love’s Goodbye
it is not the rain that’s causing me to blink vain tears away nor the runaway rumble of thunder threatening worse. it is not. it is not the passing scene that makes me listless nor the ticking of the clock evoking remorse. it is not. it is that i hear you call. i feel you near, wanting more things said needing them done. but i HAVE endured enough. surely you must know. my train is here – with the rain lashing at the window. chug-chugging on chug-chugging on the hour has come. where were you? what was i to do? out there in the rain, i stood alone. i had to go, too. my heart is heavy, glum, longing for the sun. but daybreak is elusive, drowned by the tears and rain. deadened by the pain. gone.
www.originalpoetry.com/loves-goodbye-from-a-train-window
Word History: No doubt more than one reader has wondered exactly how goodbye is derived from the phrase “God be with you.” To understand this, it is helpful to see earlier forms of the expression, such as God be wy you, god b’w'y, godbwye, god buy’ ye, and good-b’wy. The first word of the expression is now good and not God, for good replaced God by analogy with such expressions as good day, perhaps after people no longer had a clear idea of the original sense of the expression. A letter of 1573 written by Gabriel Harvey contains the first recorded use of goodbye: “To requite your gallonde [gallon] of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes,” recalling another contraction that is still used.
