Scarica Ulysses - Lord Alfred Tennyson e più Dispense in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses (1833, publ. 1842) It 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. 5 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 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 10 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— 15 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 20 For ever 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 25 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 30 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bounds 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 35 This labor, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' 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 40 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, 45 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. 50 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 55 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 60 Of all the western stars, until I die.
