It little profits that an idle king, <br />By this still hearth, among these barren crags, <br />Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole <br />Unequal laws unto a savage race, <br />That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. <br />I cannot rest from travel; I will drink <br />Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed <br />Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those <br />That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when <br />Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades <br />Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; <br />For always roaming with a hungry heart <br />Much have I seen and known--cities of men <br />And manners, climates, councils, governments, <br />Myself not least, but honored of them all,-- <br />And drunk delight of battle with my peers, <br />Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. <br />I am a part of all that I have met; <br />Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough <br />Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades <br />For ever and for ever when I move. <br />How dull it is to pause, to make an end, <br />To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! <br />As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life <br />Were all too little, and of one to me <br />Little remains; but every hour is saved <br />From that eternal silence, something more, <br />A bringer of new things; and vile it were <br />For some three suns to store and hoard myself, <br />And this gray spirit yearning in desire <br />To follow knowledge like a sinking star, <br />Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. <br /> This is my son, mine own Telemachus, <br />To whom I leave the scepter and the isle, <br />Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill <br />This labor, by slow prudence to make mild <br />A rugged people, and through soft degrees <br />Subdue them to the useful and the good. <br />Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere <br />Of common duties, decent not to fail <br />In offices of tenderness, and pay <br />Meet adoration to my household gods, <br />When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. <br /> There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; <br />There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, <br />Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me, <br />That ever with a frolic welcome took <br />The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed <br />Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old; <br />Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. <br />Death closes all; but something ere the end, <br />Some work of noble note, may yet be done, <br />Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. <br />The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; <br />The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep <br />Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, <br />'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. <br />Push off, and sitting well in order smite <br />The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds <br />To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths <br />Of all the western stars, until I die. <br />It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; <br />It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, <br />And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. <br />Though much is taken, much abides; and though <br />We are not now that strength which in old days <br />Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, <br />One equal temper of heroic hearts, <br />Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will <br />To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
