Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
The striking repetition of "the days that are no more" are to me, idle tears. They are overwhelming, incomprehensible reminders of the past, which exist in a realm not governed by conscious faculties. Memories and sense memories so powerful that they can reduce us to tears are things that we've all encountered at some point.
The otherworldly imagery employed only heightens the sense of the incomprehensible power of our own memories, and our attachments to the past. It's also some beautiful imagery. I particularly enjoy the passage, "Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,/That brings our friends up from the underworld" It's a very apt description of memory. Our memories can be crisp and clear as the image of sailing on a wonderful day, but at the same time, they dredge up long dead friends, alive forever in the boat of our memory. Fantastic imagery.
Showing posts with label Tennyson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tennyson. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Ulysses - Lord Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crag,
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 less. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on share, 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 untraveled 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 suns 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 scepter and the isle-
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
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 foreheads0 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.
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,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses' final lines are among the most inspirational lines of poetry I've encountered. While I know a few people who cannot stand the notions of Romanticism in poetry, the plain language of men past their prime still seeking to seek more is very powerful, I think. The notion that the journey is never over, and that there is nobility in pushing beyond one's time and means is breathtaking. The last line in particular, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." always excites me, making me want to seek out my own fortune. While I'm not about to sail off into the sunset, the message applies to any life.
I'm no classicist, so I can't properly speak about Tennyson's appropriation of the Ulysses figure for his poem, though it still strikes me as somewhat problematic. While the Homeric hero is a symbol of exploration, he is not a good life model. The character of the Homeric hero and the Ulysses in the poem are very different. I do not think that this matters so much in the overall scheme of the poem, however, and think that Tennyson titled the poem Ulysses to give it an air of grand adventure, of facing the unknown, and of approaching the mythic.
I'm a sucker for inspirational Romantic poetry. What about you? Are you moved to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield? Or do you gag at the prospect of the elderly king seeking to live new glory days? Let me know.
By this still hearth, among these barren crag,
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 less. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on share, 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 untraveled 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 suns 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 scepter and the isle-
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
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 foreheads0 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.
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,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses' final lines are among the most inspirational lines of poetry I've encountered. While I know a few people who cannot stand the notions of Romanticism in poetry, the plain language of men past their prime still seeking to seek more is very powerful, I think. The notion that the journey is never over, and that there is nobility in pushing beyond one's time and means is breathtaking. The last line in particular, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." always excites me, making me want to seek out my own fortune. While I'm not about to sail off into the sunset, the message applies to any life.
I'm no classicist, so I can't properly speak about Tennyson's appropriation of the Ulysses figure for his poem, though it still strikes me as somewhat problematic. While the Homeric hero is a symbol of exploration, he is not a good life model. The character of the Homeric hero and the Ulysses in the poem are very different. I do not think that this matters so much in the overall scheme of the poem, however, and think that Tennyson titled the poem Ulysses to give it an air of grand adventure, of facing the unknown, and of approaching the mythic.
I'm a sucker for inspirational Romantic poetry. What about you? Are you moved to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield? Or do you gag at the prospect of the elderly king seeking to live new glory days? Let me know.
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