Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Inspirational PoemsUlysses
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.
Tennyson’s Ulysses refuses to stop seeking meaning, knowledge, and action even in old age. The poem’s closing line makes it one of the strongest classic poems about perseverance.
The tone is restless, noble, and heroic. The mood becomes inspiring as the speaker turns age and uncertainty into a final call for action. The poem argues that perseverance is not limited to youth or success; it is a lifelong refusal to let comfort, age, or fear end the search for purpose.
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Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
The Chambered Nautilus
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
Holmes uses the nautilus shell as a symbol of lifelong growth. The poem teaches that the soul should keep building larger, nobler “mansions” instead of remaining trapped in the past.
The shell symbolizes the self at each stage of life. Leaving the old chamber symbolizes outgrowing limitations and moving toward a higher version of oneself.
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The Pilgrim
Who would true Valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will Constant be,
Come Wind, come Weather.
There’s no Discouragement,
Shall make him once Relent
His first avow’d Intent,
To be a Pilgrim.
Who so beset him round
With dismal Storys,
Do but themselves Confound;
His Strength the more is.
No Lyon can him fright,
He’l with a Gyant Fight,
But he will have a right,
To be a Pilgrim.
Hobgoblin, nor foul Fiend,
Can daunt his Spirit;
He knows, he at the end
Shall Life inherit.
Then Fancies fly away,
He’l fear not what men say,
He’l labour Night and Day,
To be a Pilgrim.
Bunyan’s pilgrim remains constant through wind, weather, discouragement, frightening enemies, and public opinion. The poem presents perseverance as faithfulness to a chosen path.
The tone is brave and hymn-like. The mood is resolute because every threat becomes another proof of the pilgrim’s strength.
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Work
Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market-place or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
“This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;
Of all who live, I am the one by whom
This work can best be done in the right way.”
Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,
To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;
Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours,
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall
At eventide, to play and love and rest,
Because I know for me my work is best.
Van Dyke’s sonnet treats work as a calling rather than a punishment. The poem connects perseverance with daily responsibility, focus, and cheerful acceptance of one’s task.
The poem is a sonnet. Its compact structure supports the idea of disciplined, focused labor.
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Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
Columbus
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone;
Speak, Admiral, what shall I say?”
“Why say, sail on! and on!”
“My men grow mut’nous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave wash’d his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Admiral,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why, you shall say, at break of day:
‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanch’d mate said;
“Why, now, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, and say——”
He said: “Sail on! and on!”
They sailed, they sailed, then spoke his mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night,
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one word;
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leaped as a leaping sword:
“Sail on! sail on! and on!”
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And thro’ the darkness peered that night
Ah, darkest night! and then a speck—
A light! a light! a light! a light!
It grew—a star-lit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn;
He gained a world! he gave that world
Its watch-word: “On! and on!”
Miller dramatizes Columbus continuing through fear, mutiny, darkness, and hopelessness. The repeated command “sail on” turns the poem into a powerful example of perseverance through uncertainty.
The sea is personified as a beast with teeth. Darkness, stars, salt waves, and final light create a dramatic movement from danger to discovery.
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