ADVENTURES WITH ULYSSES

Ulysses and the Sirens
(1891)

John William Waterhouse 

"It is difficult

to get the news from poems;

yet men die miserably every day

from lack

of what is found there."

William Carlos Williams

At some point in the late sixties, I rediscovered Tennyson's great epic poem, Ulysses.  I had read the poem in high school and college, of course, but treated it as little more than an academic exercise.  My perceptions changed, however, as I began to face the daunting headwinds of my own voyage.  I began to understand that Ulysses was more than just a poem; it was a reliable chart of the uncertain waters over which my own life would travel.  More importantly, it provided wise counsel on what one must do to not only survive the journey, but to find strength, joy, and fulfillment in it.

In the days that followed my rediscovery of Ulysses, I committed the poem to memory, where, for the most part, it has remained for four decades.  I share it with you now because, even if you have read it hundreds of times, there is always something fresh and inspirational to be unveiled.  If, like me, you are still writing the script for the third act of your life, you may find the poem's stentorian call to adventure to be especially moving.  It is, indeed, a time "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."  Enjoy!

Ulysses
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd 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

Vexed 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

For ever and for ever 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 suns to store and hoard myself,

And this grey 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 --

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill

This labour, 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

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 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 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,

'Tis 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

Tho' 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:

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Portrait by George Frederic Watts