“I envy not in any moodsThe captive void of noble rage,The linnet born within the cage,That never knew the summer woods:I envy not the beast that takesHis license in the field of time,Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,To whom a conscience never wakes;Nor, what may count itself as blest,The heart that never plighted trothBut stagnates in the weeds of sloth;Nor any want-begotten rest.I hold it true, whate’er befall;I feel it, when I sorrow most;‘Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.”

“I hold it true, whate'er befall;I feel it when I sorrow most;'Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.Verse XXVII”

“Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.”

“I sing to him that rests below,And, since the grasses round me wave,I take the grasses of the grave,And make them pipes whereon to blow.The traveller hears me now and then,And sometimes harshly will he speak:`This fellow would make weakness weak,And melt the waxen hearts of men.'Another answers, `Let him be,He loves to make parade of painThat with his piping he may gainThe praise that comes to constancy.'A third is wroth: `Is this an hourFor private sorrow's barren song,When more and more the people throngThe chairs and thrones of civil power?'A time to sicken and to swoon,When Science reaches forth her armsTo feel from world to world, and charmsHer secret from the latest moon?'Behold, ye speak an idle thing:Ye never knew the sacred dust:I do but sing because I must,And pipe but as the linnets sing:And one is glad; her note is gay,For now her little ones have ranged;And one is sad; her note is changed,Because her brood is stol'n away.”

“That which we dare invoke to bless;Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;He, They, One, All; within, without;The Power in darkness whom we guess;I found Him not in world or sun,Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;Nor thro' the questions men may try,The petty cobwebs we have spun:If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,I heard a voice `believe no more'And heard an ever-breaking shoreThat tumbled in the Godless deep;A warmth within the breast would meltThe freezing reason's colder part,And like a man in wrath the heartStood up and answer'd `I have felt.'No, like a child in doubt and fear:But that blind clamour made me wise;Then was I as a child that cries,But, crying, knows his father near;And what I am beheld againWhat is, and no man understands;And out of darkness came the handsThat reach thro' nature, moulding men.”

“I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: all times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone.”

“It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched 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 enjoyed Greatly, 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 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 honored of them all--- And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untraveled 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 gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.This is my son, my own Telemachus, To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--- Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill This labor, 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, centered 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 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 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. 'Tis 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 that 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 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.”