This wonderful intaglio pendant has a beautiful and sentimental message written on its citrine paste stone: "The Hope of Return Takes the Sting from Adieu” 

Set on a 9ct Gold setting, the citrine paste has a warm caramel/honey glow which morphes from a lemony yellow to warm orange.  It measures 1.5cm x 1.4cm and weighs 2.30g.  It looks great on a chain, as you can see from the photos, but the chain does not come with the pendant.

Inscriptions such as this one were often exchanged between lovers during the Georgian and Victorian eras and they hold such wonderful sentimentality.  However, this particular inscription actually comes from the beautiful poem,  'Farewell to Tarwathie'  by George Scroggie.  It was a poem he wrote in the 1850s about departing his beloved home in Scotland for a whale fishing expedition.

Farewell to TarwathieFarewell to Tarwathie—
Adieu, Mormon Hill—
Land of my fathers
I bid you farewell.Your hills and your valleys,
Your mountains of heath—
Still dear to my heart
Is the land of my birth.Adieu to my comrades—
May God bless you all;—
My friends and relations
I bid you farewell.For a while I must leave you
And go to the sea—
Heaven prosper the bonny ship
That I will go wi’.May He who never slumbers
From danger us keep,
While viewing his wonders
On the mighty deep.Our ship she is rigged
And ready to sail,
Our crew they are anxious
To follow the whale.Where the icebergs float,
And the stormy winds blow;
Where the land and the ocean
Is covered with snow.The cold clime of Greenland
Is barren and bare;
No seed time nor harvest
Is ever known there.The birds here sing sweetly
On mountain and dale;
But the songsters are mute
In the land of the whale.There is no habitation
For man to live there—
The king of that country
Is the fierce Greenland bear.But when I am sailing
Upon the wide main,
Be cheerful and happy
Till I come again.And you my dear mother,
O weep not for me,
But trust in His mercy
That ruleth the sea.Who saves on the ocean
As well’s on the land,
For we are all guarded
By His mighty hand.He rides on the billows
And walks on the wave—
His arm is powerful
To sink or to save.And though I be absent
You need never fear;
There’s no place so distant
But God will be there.I will pray night and morning,
Dear parents, for you;
For the hope of returning
Takes the sting from adieu