This volume consists chiefly of contemporary or very recent verse. But
it could not serve its full purpose without the presence, here and
there, of older poems--of "classics." These express a truth, a mood, or
a spirit that is universal, and they express it in words of noble
dignity and beauty. They are not always easy to understand; they are
crops we must patiently cultivate, not crops that volunteer. But they
wear well; they grow upon us; we come back to them again and again, and
still they are fresh, living, significant--not empty, meaningless, and
weather-worn, like a last year's crow's nest.
Such a poem is _Ulysses_. It is shot through and through with the spirit
of strenuous and never-ceasing endeavor--a spirit manifest in a hero who
has every temptation to rest and enjoy. Ulysses is old. After ten long
years of warfare before Troy, after endless misfortunes on his homeward
voyage, after travels and experiences that have taken him everywhere and
shown him everything that men know and do, he has returned to his rude
native kingdom. He is reunited with his wife Penelope and his son
Telemachus. He is rich and famous. Yet he is unsatisfied. The task and
routine of governing a slow, materially minded people, though suited to
his son's temperament, are unsuited to his. He wants to wear out rather
than to rust out. He wants to discover what the world still holds. He
wants to drink life to the lees. The morning has passed, the long day
has waned, twilight and the darkness are at hand. But scant as are the
years left to him, he will use them in a last, incomparable quest. He
rallies his old comrades--tried men who always
"With a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine"--
and asks them to brave with him once more the hazards and the hardships
of the life of vast; unsubdued enterprise.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,--cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-beloved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
_Alfred Tennyson._