An Excerpt from Tennyson's "Ulysses""

Dr. Head's Brit Lit class is reading Tennyson this week, and I can only wish I were in the class. I've already had two semesters of 19th century British Literature with other professors, and I didn't have time to audit this class. It's a pity, really. Some things, like Tennyson, only improve upon re-reading. I like this passage of "Ulysses,"although I haven't quite discovered its meaning. What do you think?

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	20
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	25
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	30
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. Full-text: Bartleby.com