It's little profits that an idle king
By this still hearth, among these barren crags
Matched with an aged wife,
Mete out and dole
Unequal laws
Unto a savage race
That hoard, and sleep, and feed
And know me not!
I cannot rest from travel
I will drink life to the lees
All times I have enjoyed greatly
And have suffered greatly
Both with those that loved me
And alone, on shore
And when, through scudding drifts
The rainy hyades vexed the dim sea
I am becoming 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 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
Where through gleams that untravelled 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 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
To my dear son
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 offices of tenderness
And pay neat adoration to my household gods
When I am gone
He works his work
I work mine
There lies the port
The vessel puffs her sails
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
Old age has 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 light begins to twinkle from the rocks
The long day wanes
The slow moon climbs
The deep moans
Round
With many voices
Come, my friends, it 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
Who we knew
Though much is taken, much abides
Though we are not now that strength
Which in old days moved earth and heaven
What 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