“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.”

“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.”

“Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,At last he beat his music out.There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds.He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,He would not make his judgment blind,He faced the spectres of the mindAnd laid them: thus he came at lengthTo find a stronger faith his own;And Power was with him in the night,Which makes the darkness and the light,And dwells not in the light alone,”

“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 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.”

“Sunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!And may there be no moaning of the bar,When I put out to sea,But such a tide as moving seems asleep,Too full for sound and foam,When that which drew from out the boundless deepTurns again home.Twilight and evening bell,And after that the dark!And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;For tho' from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crossed the bar.”

“No sword Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word She shook the world.”