To seek, to find, to design and not to yield.

Design Some­thing Every­day 14/365

This was a design based on one of my favorite poems, Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Ten­nyson. The poem is very mov­ing, and has the great hero Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) at the end of his life feel­ing the urge to strive, explore and set sail once again. That is an urge we have and should cher­ish, that lit­tle voice that tells us there is still much more to see and do. It is a human qual­ity that we need to heed, espe­cially when our boat has waited to0 long in the har­bor. Here’s the com­plete poem (don’t worry it’s in the pub­lic domain):

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 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 hon­oured 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 wherethrough
Gleams that untrav­elled world, whose mar­gin fades
For ever and for ever 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 grey 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 through 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 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.

Poem Source

Just for fun here’s a YouTube video of a per­for­mance of the poem:

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