IT little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 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 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! He works his work, I mine. 10 20 30 40 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 meThat 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; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep It may be that the gulfs will wash us down ; We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 70 60 50 COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn; Leave me here, and when you want me sound upon the bugle horn. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; |