Ulysses and other news

      You may be more familiar with the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson than you might think. Ulysses or Odysseus is the Greek hero who, after the Trojan war, spends 20 years trying to get home, as detailed in The Odyssey. Tennyson picks up Ulysses's story many years later as the aged king begins to long for one more adventure, one more golden hurrah before death claims him. He gathers his old adventuring friends together and sets forth.
      Read this poem aloud. You'll be amazed at the power that Tennyson gives this poem. As I grow older and sometimes wonder if the best is already behind me, this poem gives me courage and strength.
      The reason you might be more familiar with this poem that you might think is that a popular long-running TV sit-com quoted the end of the poem in its series finale. Do you know which one?

Ulysses
By Alfred, Lord 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 honour’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 fulfil
This labour, 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 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,
’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 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.


       Frasier used the last six lines in its series finale. Kelsey Grammer did a great reading.
       Changing the subject, you may notice the word count on Murder by the Acre didn't go up this morning. That's because I spent yesterday entering in corrections and working on the Ryton Atlas. To speak of the last first, the Atlas is a Who's Who and What's What for Ryton, Oklahoma, where the Measurements of Murder™ series is set. I had a very rough one that I used for Murder by Dewey Decimal, but it was totally inadequate for MBTA. Several errors in the book were caused by me losing track. So I'm doing in the last place what I should have been doing in the first place: compiling a Ryton Atlas. I will also need to do this for Darkness, Oklahoma and Dragons Gather. Sigh. Anyone want a very demanding, stressful, non-paying job as a compiler? Thought not.
      Crystal found a lot of corrections for me that I'm busy entering into the book. Some of which are simply my style, but most are errors. I type fast when the story wants to be told so I leave out words, misspell, etc. It's amazing to me sometimes how much I miss. I also received several corrections on a few chapters from Nancy C. I appreciate their help in getting MBTA ready to go.
      In other news: I continue to kill a few things in World of Warcraft. I have been assured that the game is better as soon as you hit level 20. I'm 18th rank now. Since I'm not devoting hours to the game -- I come in and play for a few minutes, usually until I'm killed -- it may take longer than my free trial to reach 20th.
       The gloom continues to lift. I think all the sunshine is helping. I love summer, despite its heat. Or maybe because of it.
       And now I need to get to work. More later. Have a great day.