"'Tis not to late to seek a newer world . . . "

Ulysses

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

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.         5 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 lov’d me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades         10 Vex’d 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;         15 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         20 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 pil’d on life Were all too little, and of one to me         25 Little remains: but every hour is sav’d 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         30 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-lov’d of me, discerning to fulfil         35 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         40 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,         45 Souls’ that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought       with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and oppos’d Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;         50 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:          55        the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’T is 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         60 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’         65 We are not now that strength which in old days Mov’d 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.         70