“I am thinking of Achilles’ grief, he said. That famous, terrible grief. Let me tell you boys something. Such grief can only be told in form. Maybe it only really exists in form. Form is everything, without it you’ve got nothing but a stub-toed cry, sincere maybe, for what its worth, but with no depth or carry. No echo. You may have a grievance, but you do not have grief, and grievances are for petitions, not poetry.”Old School by Tobias Wolff
This poem by Tennyson features an aged Ulysses (Odysseus), who is still too restless and adventurous to stay put in Ithaca.
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.
Read the entire poem. I’m getting older myself, and I can sympathize with this version of Odysseus, who wants “life piled on life.”
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
Oh, thank you for posting this today. It’s been so long since I read it, and I loved it so much. I went through the link and read the whole thing again, though my favorite part is “Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough/Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades/For ever and for ever when I move.”
My favorite Tennyson is the prologue to “In Memoriam” (“Strong Son of God, immortal love . . .”), but this is probably second.