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 Meet0 adoration to my household gods, 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,6 and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads7?you and I are old;
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 baths8
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,1 whom we knew.
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 far7. Confidence. western ocean, where the virtuous and heroes 8. The outer ocean or river that the Greeks dwell forever after death (often identified with Elybelieved 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.
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TITHONUS / 1125
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 70 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
