ALFRED TENNYSON 诗作"Ulysses"
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still bearth, 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 love me,and alone;on shore,and when
Through scuddings drift the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea:I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known;cities of man
And manners,climates,councils ,governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delights 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 breath 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 three suns to store and board myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like the singking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son,mine own Telemachos,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle---
Well-loved of me,disccerning to fulfil
This labour,by slow prudence to make mild
Arugged people,and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he,centred in the sphere
Of commen 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 honour and his toil;
Death closes all:but something ere the end,
Some works of noble note,may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The light begun 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 beyongd 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.
