From: proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Poetry Suggestion
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:39:36 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <18359iINNhsu@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) writes:
>
>In a previous article, scottj@tahiti.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott) says:
>
>>I will soon read a poem to my Toastmasters club (a club for people
>>interested in improving public speaking skills).   I am looking for a
>>particular sort of poem to read--I want an inspirational poem, a rousing
>>tribute to the power and spirit of the human race.  I want a poem that
>>brings a lump to your throat and makes you proud to be a human being.  I am
>>particularly interested in something that celebrates the the noble or
>>courageous individual.  I also need it to be from a reasonably well known
>>poet, one that I would be able to find in a public or college library.
>>
>>So how about it?  Anybody out there have any favorites that fit the bill? 
>>Any suggestions you can give me would be of the greatest help and would be
>>sincerely appreciated.
>>
>>Please respond by email or by posting.
>>
>>John Scott
>>scottj@gumedlib.dml.georgetown.edu
>>
>Given your aims and conditions, it would be hard to beat Tennyson's
>"Ulysses."

It certainly makes me think I've been amongst the barren crags of
California too long, what with there being a whole world out there
to go out and be heroic in!

Ulysses

 It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I meet 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 enjoyed
Greatly, and suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through 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 honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle of 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 wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world whose margins fade
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
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,
And this grey 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 isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In office of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration of 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,
Souls that have soiled, 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 yet hath 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:
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is 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.
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.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not 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.


             
                  - Alfred Lord Tennyson