One day, good bye met how d’ye do
Too close to shun saluting,
But soon the rival sisters flew
From kissing to disputing.
Away, says how d’ye do, your mien
Appals my chearful nature,
No name so sad as your’s is seen
In sorrow’s nomenclature.
Whene’r I give one sunshine hour
Your cloud comes o’er to shade it,
Whene’r I plant one bosom flower
Your mildew drop so fade it.
Ere how d’ye do has tun’d each tongue
In hope’s delightful measure;
Good bye in friendship’s ear has rung
The knell of parting pleasure.
From sorrows past my mimic skill
Draws smiles of consolation;
While you from present joys distil
The tears of separation.
Good bye replied, your statement’s true
And well your cause you’ve pleaded
But pray who’d think of how d’ye do
Unless good bye preceded?
How oft as at the court of love
Concealment is the fashion
When how d’ye do has fail’d to move
Good bye reveals the passion.
How oft when Cupid’s fires decline
As every heart remembers
One sigh of mine & and only mine
Revives the dying embers.
Go, bid the timid lover choose
And I’ll resign my charter
If he for ten kind how d’ye does
One kind good bye would barter.
From love & friendship’s kindred source
We both derive existence
And they wou’d both lose half their force
Without our joint assistance.
’Tis well the world our merit knows,
Since time, there’s no denying,
One half in how d’ye doing goes,
And t’other in good by’ing.
Without my prior influence
Cou’d your’s have ever flourish’d
And can your hand one flower dispense
But those my fears have nourished?