ULYSSES. Ir little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 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 Myself not least, but honour'd of them all ; 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 Little remains but every hour is saved To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees. 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 honour 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 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. LOCKSLEY HALL. COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. 'Tis the place, and round the gables, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. |