A speaker prepares to leave, likely to face death, and his words are a soft request: don’t cry. He speaks to a woman—maybe a lover, a wife, or a mother—and though the departure is final, his tone isn’t desperate. It’s steady and strangely comforting. The poem circles around the same gentle command, repeating “do not weep” like a soothing mantra. What holds the sadness in check is the image he offers: both of them will one day lie down at the foot of the same hill and sleep. Earth becomes a mother, the sky a shared tent, and death feels less like an ending than a homecoming. The mood is quiet, open, and a little melancholy, but it never sinks into grief. The speaker draws on a patient, natural certainty—the hill and the earth will outlast the pain of parting, and that knowledge makes the goodbye almost peaceful.
Parting — Summary
Now I go, do not weep, woman — Woman, do not weep; Though I go from you to die, We shall both lie down At the foot of the hill, and sleep.
Now I go, do not weep, woman — Woman, do not weep; Earth is our mother and our tent the sky. Though I go from you to die. We shall both lie down At the foot of the hill, and sleep.