To evil courses: ignominy and shame
Fell on him, so that he was driven at last
To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas.

up

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
"Twill make a thing endurable which else
Would overset the brain or break the heart.
I have conversed with more than one who well
Remember the old man, and what he was
Years after he had heard this heavy news.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks
He went, and still looked
towards the sun,
And listened to the wind; and, as before,
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep,
And for the land his small inheritance.
And to that hollow dell from time to time
Did he repair to build the fold of which
His flock had need. "Tis not forgotten yet
The pity which was then in every heart
For the old man; and 'tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went
And never lifted up a single stone.

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There, by the sheepfold, sometimes was he seen, Sitting alone, with that his faithful dog,

Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.

The length of full seven years, from time to time,

He at the building of this sheepfold wrought,

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And left the work unfinished when he died.

Three years, or little more, did Isabel

Survive her husband. At her death the estate

Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand.

The cottage which was named The Evening Star

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Is gone; the ploughshare has been through the ground

On which it stood; great changes have been wrought
In all the neighbourhood; yet the oak is left

That grew beside their door; and the remains
Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen

Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.

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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.

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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

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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'

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Gleams that untravell'd world, whose inargin fades

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For ever and for ever 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

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Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were

From some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire

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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.

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Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

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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,

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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:

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The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 55 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 beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

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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.

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-Tennyson.