Poem A Day

Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor!

by John Dryden

Farewell, ungrateful traitor!

Farewell, my perjur'd swain!

Let never injur'd woman

Believe a man again.

The pleasure of possessing

Surpasses all expressing,

But 'tis too short a blessing,

And love too long a pain.

'Tis easy to deceive us

In pity of your pain,

But when we love, you leave us

To rail at you in vain.

Before we have descried it,

There is no joy beside it,

But she that once has tried it

Will never love again.

The passion you pretended

Was only to obtain,

But once the charm is ended,

The charmer you disdain.

Your love by ours we measure

Till we have lost our treasure,

But dying is a pleasure

When living is a pain.

About this poem

The repeated farewell sounds final, but the speaker keeps addressing the lover, turning rejection into a performance of regained control.

What to notice

  • Direct address gives the poem the force of a spoken confrontation.
  • The polished rhyme and repetition contain emotions that are otherwise volatile.

Text and source

Rights
Public domain
Source
View original source

Dryden's comma is preserved in the title; the poem is also commonly searched without punctuation.

Also known as: Farewell Ungrateful Traitor

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