Dedicated, of course, to Tennyson, and to WetLuzinski, for whom I have a whole new respect.
O Odyssey
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
Vext the champs-would-be: I am become a meme;
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
I am the heart of all that here has met;
Yet all veteran experience is a PRISM wherethro'
Gleams that too-Burrell'd world whose inhibition fades
For ever and forever, this I move.
How dull it is to pause, to yet make an start,
To rest unfurnish'd, not to shine in use!
Were all too little, and of one to me.
Little time remains: but every hour is honed
In that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some four years to store and hoard myself,
And this red and white spirit yearning in desire
Beyond the utmost bound of Ashburn Alley.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
Well-kept of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by split squads to make fit
A rugged people, and thro' soft routines
Subdue them to the useful and the best shapes of their life.
Most helpful is he, centred in the sphere
Of uncounted stats, decent not to fail
In offices of loosening up, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
That ever with a July welcome took
November closes all: but something ere the ninth,
The lights begin to twinkle from the docks:
The long winter wanes: the mercury does climb: the creeps
'Tis not too late to seek a newer Classic.
Point forth, and sitting well disordered smite
To sail beyond October, and the baths
Of all the Eastern stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
We are not now that strength which in old days