With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. “But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Through all the circle of the golden year ? Thus far he flowed, and ended; whereupon 66 66 Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answered James Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'T were all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,-James,-you know him, old, but full And like an oaken stock in winter woods, Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this? Old writers pushed the happy season back, — The more fools they, we forward: dreamers both : You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip That unto him who works, and feels he works, He spoke; and, high above us, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. 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 Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those And drunk delight of battle with my peers, I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled 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! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Little remains: but every hour is saved A bringer of new things; and vile it were In offices of tenderness, and pay 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, The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep "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 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. Though much is taken, much abides; and though |