Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

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

[ocr errors]

Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answered James
Ah, folly! for it lies so far away,

Not in our time, nor in our children's time,
'Tis like the second world to us that live,

'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

[ocr errors]

And broke it,-James,-you know him, old, but full
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,

And like an oaken stock in winter woods,
O'erflourished with the hoary clematis :

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
His hand into the bag: but well I know

That unto him who works, and feels he works,
This same grand year is ever at the doors."

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,
Matched 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 enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext 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,
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

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
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 sums to store and hoard myself,
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 sceptre and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
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, 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.

"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

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »