“Of the wonder and richness that were your father’s
Life in the war, the long way home.
No man has lived, as I, Telemachus,
None ever will live in the days to come
“A life that followed the paths and hollows
Of Time, the wayward ways of the streams
That flow round earth, the winds and waters
Of passion, wisdom, thought and dreams.
“There are two things, my boy, and only
Two in the world, remember this:
One thing is men, the other women,
And after the two of them nothing is.
“I have known men as king and warrior,
Known them as liegmen, spears of the line.
Good enough lamps for workaday darkness—
They are not food, they are not wine;
“They are not heat that stir the secret
Core of the seed of a man, be sure.
And I, Ulysses, needed the planets,
And suns of the spring to live, mature.”
“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus,
“And, say is it true you lost eight years
Away from Ithaca, me and my mother
Because of a certain Calypso’s tears?”
The eyes of the hero rolled and wandered.
“There now, my boy, you have the truth.
I’ll try to tell you perhaps you’ll get it
In spite of your filial love and your youth.
“First, understand there are two things only;—
One is women, the other men.
And men I knew before and at Troyland,
And searched their hearts again and again.
“What do you get? Secrets of cunning,
Cruelty, strength, and much that you use
In the battle with them; but what’s a woman?
She is the mother, she is the Muse
“That leads and lifts to life—Telemachus
How can I tell you?—have a care!
Young men seize on the words of wisdom,
And find their hands in a silken snare,
“Hearing blindly, seeing literally,
What is a sword, a lamp, a shield?
Touch and learn, the name is only
The shell wherein the thing is concealed.”