---
title: Ulysses
tags:
  - authorship/other
  - exclude-from-word-count
  - status/complete
  - type/media/poetry
author: Alfred Lord Tennyson
up: "[[poetry]]"
---
# Ulysses

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. \
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 \
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 honor'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' \
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades \
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 \
Little remains; but every hour is saved