In the 1990s, at a challenging time, I signed up for an Outward Bound trip to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California in hopes of finding some inspiration and rejuvenation. On the solo part of that hiking and camping adventure, in a spectacular mountain setting by a clear stream in the High Sierras, I read a number of quotations that were set out in the Outward Bound handbook. One of them, the final verses of Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses, inspired me then and inspires me still:
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,
'T is 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.
