I go though fits of being obsessed with certain poems or pieces of writing. It’s mostly the sounds of a poem that make me want to read it over and over again. When the English language is used correctly it becomes overwhelmingly powerful.
So I’ll probably be posting pieces I become obsessed with from time to time. Like today:
Ulysses – Lord Alfred Tennyson
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
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 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 isle,–
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, 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
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;
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;
Old age hath yet his honor 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.
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.
While being obsessed with the poem I stumbled upon a reading of the second half of the final stanza by Sir John Gielgud. UBS ran a series of adds promoting “Ideas that transcend time” which features famous actors reading timeless poems. I was going to do an omnipost that included my favorites from the series but I’ll place the Ulysses reading here.
Saw “The Invention of Lying” today. The first two thirds of the film were very funny. Awkward at times, but the style of awkwardness that Ricky Gervais makes hilarious. The last part of the movie did feel gutted in order to get the happy ending. There were so many better place they could have taken the concept but they finished off with a generic Romantic Comedy style ending. It was especially disappointing because Gervais’ religion satire was unique. In order to really reflex on a piece of our society it’s important to remove it from the context that normally exists in order to make it look ridiculous. “The Invention of Lying” managed to do this to religion and I believe this might have been the first time it was executed so well. Sure Science Fiction and Fantasy have accomplished similar satires on religion but none has achieved the level of ridiculous that Gervais did in this film.
It is definitely worth watching to see a great line up of very funny people (Louis C. K., Tina Faye, Ed Norton, John Hodgman, and others) with the always funny comedy of Rick Gervais.
