Alfred Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’

Alfred Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’

Alfred Tennyson is one of the great poets of English Literature. In one of his poems titled ‘Ulysses’, he draws upon the ancient hero of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. (“Ulysses” is the Roman form of the Greek “Odysseus”)

Ulysses was the ruler of the kingdom of Ithaca. Ulysses finds himself restless in Ithaca and is driven by the longing to gain experience of the world.

This poem is written as a dramatic monologue i.e. the entire poem is spoken by a single character, whose identity is revealed by his own words. The lines are in blank verse which serves to impart a fluid and natural quality to Ulysses’s speech. “Ulysses” deals with the desire to reach beyond the limits of one’s field of vision and the mundane details of everyday life.

It is said that this poem also concerns the poet’s own personal journey. It was composed in the first few weeks after Tennyson learned of the death of his dear college friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. This poem is stated to be an elegy for a deeply cherished friend. Ulysses, who symbolizes the grieving poet, proclaims his resolution to push onward in spite of the awareness that “death closes all” (line 51). The poem’s hero longs to flee the tedium of daily life “among these barren crags” (line 2) and to enter a mythical dimension “beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars” (lines 60–61). The poem’s final line, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” came to serve as a motto for the poet’s Victorian contemporaries.

I had studied this poem in my college. This was prescribed for the elocution competition in college and I took part in that competition.

Here are some beautiful quotes:

‘How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life!’

‘To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.’ 

‘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 work of noble note, may yet be done,’ 

‘Come, my friends, 

'T is 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.’ 

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

ULYSSES

Alfred 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 enjoy'd 

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when 

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext 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 honour'd 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 wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

For ever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' 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 sceptre and the isle,— 

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 

This labour, 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, centred 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 honour 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, 

'T is 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 tho' 

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.