More things are wrought by prayer

Pray for my soul.

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

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Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst if indeed I go

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)-
To the island-valley of Avilion ;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns.
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

ULYSSES

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,

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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 a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

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Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades 20 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 tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

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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

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To foilow 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 labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.

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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 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;

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Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;

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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

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The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

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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.

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THE REVENGE

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

I

Ar Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from

far away:

"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty

three!"

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of

gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow

quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fiftythree?"

II

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are
no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick

ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my
Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

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III

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that

day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the

land

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Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not

left to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the

Lord.

IV

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came

in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. "Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, tell us now,

For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English

men.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the

devil,

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

V

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left

were seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane

between.

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