Alfred Tennyson's Poem Ulysses

Ulysses (Odysseus) affirms that there is little issue in his residing dwelling "by this still hearth" with his vintage wife, doling out pays and penalties for the unnamed masses who reside in his kingdom.

Still talking to himself he declares that he "cannot rest from travel" but feels compelled to reside to the fullest and ingest every last fall of life. He has relished all his knowledge as a boat crew who journeys the oceans, and he considers himself an emblem for every individual who rambles and roams the earth. His journeys have revealed him to numerous distinct kinds of persons and ways of living. They have furthermore revealed him to the "delight of battle" while battling the Trojan War with his men. Ulysses affirms that his journeys and comes across have formed who he is: "I am a part of all that I have met," he asserts. And it is only when he is travelling that the "margin" of the globe that he has not yet crossed shrinks and fade, and stop to goad him.

Ulysses affirms that it is dull to stay in one location, and that to stay stationary is to rust other than to shine; to stay in one location is to imagine that all there is to life is the easy proceed of respiring, while he understands that in detail life comprises much novelty, and he longs to meet this. His essence craves certainly for new knowledge that will expand his horizons; he desires "to pursue information like a going under star" and eternally augment in wisdom and in learning.

Ulysses now talks to an unidentified assembly in relative to his child Telemachus, who will proceed as his successor while the large champion restarts his travels: he states, "This is my child, mine own Telemachus, to who I depart the scepter and the isle." He talks highly but furthermore patronizingly of his son's capabilities as a leader, admiring his prudence, dedication, and devotion to the gods. Telemachus will do his work of ruling the isle while Ulysses will do his work of travelling the seas: "He works his work, I mine."

In the last stanza, Ulysses locations the mariners with who he has worked, travelled, and withstood life's gales over numerous years. He affirms that whereas he and they are vintage, they still have the promise to do certain thing noble and honourable before "the long day wanes." He affirms that his aim is to sail onward "beyond the sunset" until his death. Perhaps, he proposes, they may even come to the "Happy Isles," or the paradise of perpetual summer recounted in Greek mythology where large champions like the warrior Achilles were accepted to have been taken after their deaths. Although Ulysses and his mariners are not as powerful as they were in youth, they are "strong in will" and are maintained by their determination to impel onward relentlessly: "To strive, to search, to find, and not to yield."

This verse is in writing as a spectacular monologue: ...