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 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 seas: 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 grey 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-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, 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 toiled, 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 that 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. |
Most critics are of the opinion that "In Memoriam", a pastiche of some 23 poems revolving around the premature death of Arthur Hallam, a close friend of Tennyson's, is Tennyson's "masterpiece." I disagree. I find "In Memoriam" to be rather gloomy and inwardly turned, sentimental, sometimes even a bit mawkish. "Ulysses" resonates aptly with Homer's Ulysses, taking off where Homer finishes, presenting the aging hero burning with desire for one last voyage into the unknown. The language of the poem and its flowing rhythms have a certain majesty, even grandeur and it is one of the most inspirational poems ever written. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Is there another line of poetry anywhere as inspiring as that? This is a poem that begs to be read aloud by a masculine voice that can project a kingly authority. Take, for example, the line: "The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices." When read aloud slowly, drawling the words a bit, the rythms of the phrases match the tempo of the actions they are describing. Some passages have a Shakespearean voice, showing deep knowledge of the human psyche: "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." Tennyson captures the essence of the "Iliad" in just two lines: "And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy" "As tho' to breathe were life". What a world of meaning in that short sentence. This poem is a true masterpiece.
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