Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, That loving heart, that patient soul, To run their course, and reach their goal, That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry, The sense of tears in mortal things That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled And temper of heroic mould What, was four years their whole short day? Yes, only four! - and not the course Of all the centuries yet to come, And not the infinite resource Of nature, with her countless sum Of figures, with her fulness vast Stern law of every mortal lot! Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where. We lay thee, close within our reach, Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, Asleep, yet lending half an ear To travellers on the Portsmouth road; · Then some, who through this garden pass, People who lived here long ago The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend. 10 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON Ulysses on Old Age (From Ulysses) 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; "Tis not too late to seek a newer world. The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. |