troubles, more er less,
And it's the man who does the best
That gits more kicks than all the rest.

_James Whitcomb Riley._

From the Biographical Edition
Of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley.

ULYSSES

This volume consists chiefly of contemporary or very recent verse. But
it could not serve its full purpose without the presence, here and
there, of older poems--of "classics." These express a truth, a mood, or
a spirit that is universal, and they express it in words of noble
dignity and beauty. They are not always easy to understand; they are
crops we must patiently cultivate, not crops that volunteer. But they
wear well; they grow upon us; we come back to them again and again, and
still they are fresh, living, significant--not empty, meaningless, and
weather-worn, like a last year's crow's nest.

Such a poem is _Ulysses_. It is shot through and through with the spirit
of strenuous and never-ceasing endeavor--a spirit manifest in a hero who
has every temptation to rest and enjoy. Ulysses is old. After ten long
years of warfare before Troy, after endless misfortunes on his homeward
voyage, after travels and experiences that have taken him everywhere and
shown him everything that men know and do, he has returned to his rude
native kingdom. He is reunited with his wife Penelope and his son
Telemachus. He is rich and famous. Yet he is unsatisfied. The task and
routine of governing a slow, materially minded people, though suited to
his son's temperament, are unsuited to his. He wants to wear out rather
than to rust out. He wants to discover what the world still holds. He
wants to drink life to the lees. The morning has passed, the long day
has waned, twilight and the darkness are at hand. But scant as are the
years left to him, he will use them in a last, incomparable quest. He
rallies his old comrades--tried men who always

"With a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine"--

and asks them to brave with him once more the hazards and the hardships
of the life of vast; unsubdued enterprise.

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