O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath

not set.

Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my

fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to
Locksley Hall!

190 Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,

Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;

For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and

I go.

ULYSSES

(From the same)

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,

5 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 10 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, 15 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' 20 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

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

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 25 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, 30 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 isle35 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 40 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: 45 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; 50 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: 55 The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

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
60 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.
65 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 70 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

THE EPIC

(INTRODUCTION TO MORTE D'Arthur)

(From Poems, 1842)

At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve,-
The game of forfeits done-the girls all kiss'd
Beneath the sacred bush and past away-
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,

5 The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,

Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,
How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,
Or gone or dwindled down to some old games
In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out
10 With cutting eights that day upon the pond,
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,
I bump'd the ice into three several stars,
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,
15 Now harping on the church-commissioners,
Now hawking at Geology and schism;

Until I woke, and found him settled down
Upon the general decay of faith

Right thro' the world, at home was little left, 20 And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by.' Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard's shoulder, with 'I hold by him.'

And I,' quoth Everard, by the wassail-bowl.' 'Why yes,' I said, 'we knew your gift that way 25 At college: but another which you had,

I mean of verse (for so we held it then),
What came of that?' 'You know,' said Frank,
'he burnt

His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books '-
And then to me demanding why? 'Oh, sir,
30 He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said 'twas nothing-that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:

God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask.

It pleased me well enough.' 'Nay, nay,' said

Hall,

35 'Why take the style of those heroic times?
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times; and why should any man
Remodel models? these twelve books of mine
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth,

40 Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.'

'But I,'

Said Francis, 'pick'd the eleventh from this
hearth

And have it; keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.'

He laugh'd, and I, tho' sleepy, like a horse
45 That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears;
For I remember'd Everard's college fame
When we were Freshmen: then at my request
He brought; and the poet little urged,
But with some prelude of disparagement,
50 Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,
Deep-chested music, and to this result.

MORTE D'ARTHUR

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonesse about their Lord,
5 King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,

10 That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
'The sequel of to-day unsolders all
15 The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep-the men I loved. I think that we