http://www.englishworld2011.

info/

ULYSSES / 1123

Like a tale of little meaning though the words are strong;

165 Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whispered—down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
170 Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 5

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
1832, 1842

Ulysses 1

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
2

5 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
3

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink

Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
io Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 4

Vexed 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,
15 Myself not least, but honored 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 wherethrough
20 Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! 5

5. A yellow lilylike flower supposed to grow in Ely- involved in governing his kingdom.
sium—in classical mythology a paradise for heroes Tennyson stated that this poem expressed his
favored by the gods. own "need of going forward and braving the strug-
I. According to Dante, after the fall of Troy, Ulys- gle of life" after the death of Arthur Haliam.
ses never returned to his island home of Ithaca. 2. Measure out rewards and punishments.
Instead he persuaded some of his followers to seek 3. Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet 4.4.9.23-25: "What
new experiences by a voyage of exploration west- is a man / If his chief good . . . Be but to sleep and
ward out beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. In his feed?—a beast, no more."
inspiring speech to his aging crew he said: "Con- 4. A group of stars (literally, "rainy ones") in the
sider your origin: you were not made to live as constellation Taurus; their heliacal rising and set-
brutes, but to pursue virtue and knowledge" ting generally coincided with the season of heavy
(Inferno 26). Tennyson modified Dante's 14th- rains. "Scudding drifts": driving showers of spray
century version by combining it with Homer's and rain.
account (Odyssey 19—24). Thus Tennyson has 5. Cf. Ulysses' speech in Shakespeare's Troilus
Ulysses make his speech in Ithaca some time after and Cressida 3.3.144-^47: "Perseverance, dear my
he has returned home; reunited with his wife, lord, / Keeps honour bright. To have done is to
Penelope, and his son, Telemachus; and, presum- hang / Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail / In
ably, resumed his administrative responsibilities monumental mock'ry."
 http://www.englishworld2011.info/

1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life

25 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,
30 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 scepter and the isle—
35 Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
40 Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
0 suitable, fitting
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
45 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 6

Free hearts, free foreheads —you and I are old;

7

50 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;
55 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
60 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 8

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, 9

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 1

65 Though much is taken, much abides; and though

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,

6. I.e., varying fortunes. adise of perpetual summer, located in the far-

7. Confidence. western ocean, where the virtuous and heroes
8. The outer ocean or river that the Greeks dwell forever after death (often identified with Ely-
believed surrounded the flat circle of the earth; the sium).
stars descended into it. 1. The greatest of the Greek warriors at Troy,
9. In Greek myth the Islands of the Blessed, a par- where he was killed.
 http://www.englishworld2011.info/

TITHONUS / 1125

M a d e weak by time and fate, but strong in will

70 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
1833 1842

Tithonus 1

T h e woods decay, the woods decay a n d fall,

T h e vapors weep their b u r t h e n to the ground,
M a n comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a s u m m e r dies the swan. 2

5 Me only cruel immortality

C o n s u m e s ; I wither slowly in thine arms, 3

Here at the quiet limit of the world,

A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream
T h e ever-silent spaces of the East,
io Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of m o m .
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a m a n —
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
W h o madest him thy chosen, that he seemed
To his great heart n o n e other than a God!
15 I asked thee, "Give me immortality."
T h e n didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy m e n w h o care not how they give.
But thy strong H o u r s indignant worked their wills,
And beat me down and marred and wasted me,
20 And though they could not end me, left me m a i m e d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was in ashes. C a n thy love,
Thy beauty, make amends, though even now,
25 Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
4

Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears

To hear me? Let me go; take back thy gift.
W h y should a m a n desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of m e n ,
30 Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance'
W h e r e all should pause, as is most meet for all?
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
O n c e more the old mysterious glimmer steals
35 From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renewed.
Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, a n d the wild t e a m 6

1. A Trojan prince loved by the goddess of the 3. Aurora's arms.

dawn, Eos or Aurora, who obtained for him the gift 4. The morning star that precedes the dawn.
of living forever but neglected to ask for the gift of 5. What is decreed or ordained as human destiny.
everlasting youth. 6. The horses that draw Aurora's chariot into the
2. Some species of swans live for at least fifty sky at daybreak.
years.
 http://www.englishworld2011.info/

1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

40 Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,

And shake the darkness from their loosened manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
In silence, then before thine answer given
45 Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.
Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
"The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."
50 Ay me! ay me! with what another heart
In days far-off, and with what other eyes
I used to watch—if I be he that watched—
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;
55 Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
Glow with the glow that slowly crimsoned all
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds
60 Of April, and could hear the lips that kissed
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 7

Yet hold me not forever in thine East;

65 How can my nature longer mix with thine?
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
70 Of happy men that have the power to die,
And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
0 burial mounds
Release me, and restore me to the ground.
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave;
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn,
75 I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
1833,1859 I860

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
5 O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
7. The walls of Troy ("Ilion") were supposed to have been built to the strains of the god Apollo's music.