Posted on 03/02/2016 4:56:46 AM PST by poconopundit
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Come, my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world... Some work of noble note, may yet be done, not unbecoming men who strove with Gods.
These immortal words from Alfred Lord Tennyson's masterpiece poem, Ulysses, echo today's epic struggle to save our country from corruption and make America great again.
Ulysses (or Odysseus in Greek) was, of course, the hero and conqueror of the Trojan War that Homer wrote about in his Iliad tale of Greek mythology.
Tennyson's Ulysses poem, however, is not about the Trojan War at all. Rather it's about Ulysses' life as an old man and "idle King" sitting around and getting bored. Ulysses is restless and longs for those swash-buckling days of youth when he could roam with a "hungry heart" and drink the "delight of battle" with other warriors like Achilles.
The point of Tennyson's poem, I think, is that old warriors never lose their nobleness. Though Ulysses grew old and grey, the heroic heart of his youth stayed with him. Sure, time had taken away much of his physical strength, but there still burned inside him a desire to achieve and do "some work of noble note".
Old man Ulysses lives today in Donald Trump, a man whose been a warrior his entire adult life. Trump conquered Troy long, long ago when he became the best big-city real estate developer of his generation. And he went on to succeed in hotels, apartments, casinos, business books, television, golf courses, and several other ventures. At one point, his endurance and creative powers were severely tested by a deep recession, but he prevailed, saving his company and moving it to higher and higher levels of achievement.
So imagine a guy with this much success — a multi-billionaire who loves golf, family, and all the luxuries of life — jumping into a YUGE political battle at the ripe age of 69. Imagine the courage it takes to press forward when the full force of the establishment government, national media, and Wall Street is allied against you! It would make even Ulysses think twice!
And yet, as heroic a figure as Trump is, he cannot do the job alone. If Trump is truly to return America to its everyday citizens, then "we the people" need to step up and help him. Heroic hearts among us must rise above the ridicule and political correctness to help Trump fight the many tough political battles to come.
The good news is that millions of heroic hearts are indeed out there and have spoken! If Super Tuesday proves anything, it proves that. But our larger challenge now is to support Trump beyond the secret ballot — to stand behind him openly and be a constant supporter of the revolution Trump is leading.
And I think now is also a time of special calling for those of us who are Baby Boomers.
Younger citizens can only imagine what America was like when it was truly great. We Baby Boomers, though, actually lived at a time when America believed in self-reliance — and the dependent class of "takers" represented a much smaller fraction of voters.
In our black and white TV sets, we saw Americans walk on the moon. When President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country", our hearts swelled with pride. Our parents instilled Spartan virtues in us like hard work and dedication. Many of us even had Dads who fought in World War II or the Korean War.
So it's time to take out that rusty sword and polish it. Time to answer Tennyson's call to boldly strive for that "new and better world".
Let's "sail beyond the sunset" and return America to the land of heroes, champions, and greatness we remember from our youth.
After all, champions know a thing or two about how "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
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Ulysses - Poem by Alfred Lord TennysonIt little profits that an idle king,
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
I am become a name;
I am a part of all that I have met;
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
Free hearts, free foreheads,— you and I are old;
Come, my friends,
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
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Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 — 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Crossing the Bar. Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses.
Tennyson's was very sensitive to the musical qualities of words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. He was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. |
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In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous yet beautiful creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Ulysses was curious to hear the Sirens' song, and so, on the advice of Circe, he had all of his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men to leave him tied tightly to the mast, no matter how much he would beg. When he heard their beautiful song, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they bound him tighter. When they had passed out of earshot, Ulysses demonstrated with his frowns to be released. |
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Thomas Moran (1837 — 1926) from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, particularly the American West. He created many exquisite paintings of the Grand Canyon. |
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Myself being former Navy, I will avoid the temptation to ask which golf courses you were stationed at. :)
I really hope he will do all of those things. But I am concerned that he may not. His past statements and actions seem to indicate a lack of consistency and follow through.
| Excellent, my patriot FRiend! It's a very nice list of things that excite us about our candidate. |
| Thanks, VK. I think you have hit on the right theme. Trump has shown excellent timing in the last several months -- and now is the time, as you say, to "mend fences". People notice the bashing that Trump dishes out, but they should also notice the forgiving and praise he spoons out to his opponents. I think the top reporters in the MSM recognize this and respect him for his honesty and ability to forgive and see the bigger picture. Mark Twain said, "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." Well, Trump is proving you can actually do that as long as you treat the press fairly -- and give them good ratings. LOL. And we can draw from Emerson's wisdom too:
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LOL! Sorry to disappoint but I was a SAC trained killer for 9 of my 20 years. Two legs of the nuclear triad didn’t lend itself to the fighter pilot mentality of the rest of the AF. The whole “Deadly Force is Authorized” thing tended to focus the attention. It was after nukes were turned over to fighter pilots at the end of the Cold War that they started accidentally flying them from one base to another, etc. That’s the main reason nukes were taken back away from the fighter pilots. You need checklist-every-time guys when nukes are involved. Not seat-of-the-pants fighter pilots.
You’ll get a kick out of the fact I was invited to participate in a Chief’s Initiation while stationed overseas. I was in a joint command and one female in the command was selected for promotion to CPO. They invited me and an AF guy from the embassy who had also just made E-7 to participate so all the other chiefs wouldn’t just concentrate on her. Interesting month-long experience. I also attended a Navy school at Newport. Also interesting. Got to go aboard the Iowa when she was on a port call in Europe while I was over there, (before the explosion, of course). The Iowa’s JAG had a battle station in the CIC and he showed it to us. Impressive ship.
Thank you.
I was beginning to think I was all alone on here supporting Trump.
:-)) Well said, Pat08. AMEN! We who see a better, greater America are members of the TRUMP Revolution and will stand with this fellow swordsmen to slay the Dragon.
Poco, your rendering brings to mind images of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. With Morgan le Fay as his greatest nemesis, he battles to bring peace, harmony, and prosperity to all peoples in his land. Our Lancelot not only has Morgan le Fay to overcome, but must kill the dragon as well. He will require a great army.
| Ha! I can see our romantic -- maybe weird -- minds think alike. But it's fun to see parallels in history. There's no rule that says we can't have a little fun during our GOPe revolt. H. L. Mencken said: One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms. I might revise modernize that slightly and say: One horse laugh is worth 100 George Will columns :- ) I've got an interesting image around Trumpazine I'm working on. As you may have heard, Trumpazine is that new miracle drug that cures TDS. |
Will be the first to admit - yes, a little weird, but weird in a weird world. To see a bit differently than most isn’t a terrible thing, just different. Not so certain about the romantic, perhaps at one time. However experience tends to push romance to the side. Something only dreamed and seldom achieved.
| I am the oldest of eight kids in an Irish Catholic family raised on Cape Cod. My Dad had his own real estate agency -- and it was more or less him on his own. He was proud to be a Navy vet -- a gunners mate who was there at D-Day Normandy and D-Day Okinawa on an LST. And it was from him I first learned to appreciate the great English poets. It was a lot of work raising that many kids and every couple of weeks he would unwind by listening to some Clancy Brothers Irish phonograph records and work on a bottle of Seagram's Seven. I suppose if he tried, he could have been an alcoholic, but with eight kids he was probably too scared to become one. Besides, it was a kind of generational thing. Getting a bit drunk is what you did back then -- before the internet and FR. LOL. Ironically it was at these tipsy times when he would sometimes sit me down in a darkened living room late at night and talk about life. And he would often start spouting a few lines from some favorite poems. This was not Emily Dickenson, Robert Frost, or any light melancholy stuff. No, his liking was the epic poets and the subject was always the heavy stuff about honor, suffering, and strife. Poems like Gunga Din, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Charge of the Light Brigade, and Invictus -- with a few Shakespeare soliloquies mixed in. My Dad never really knew more than a few lines in each poem, but he had talent and was the best actor in his high school class of 100. So he spent a little time teaching me how to recite some of the lines with great feeling and with the right tempo and emphasis. And then when I was 10 years old, everyone was so excited because JFK was just elected President and his family vacation home was in Hyannisport maybe only 5 miles away across Lewis Bay. So my Dad bought a vinyl record with Kennedy speeches in it including his famous Inaugural Address. And for some odd reason, I listened to it a few times and decided to memorize it. Then I made the dumb mistake of reciting it to my Dad, who loved it and then decided to use me as his prop. Whenever his friends or my aunts would come over, my Dad would force me to recite the speech and I'd get all embarrassed, but the pressure was too much to resist. And it worked out fine and I would get a little applause and some encouragement, so maybe it did me some good. One last tidbit: we rented part of the house as a summer apartment. And one time during JFK's term we actually rented to a family where the father was a Secret Service agent for the Kennedys. Well you just knew my Dad would force me recite the Kennedy speech to that guy. But sure enough, a few weeks later the guy mailed a beautiful poster of the Kennedy Address along with a typed and signed letter from the First Lady saying how she heard about my speech and thanked me. Well my Dad was so proud -- had the poster framed with the letter inside. Don't know what actually happened to that poster, but I suppose it would be considered something valuable today. So that's a round about way of telling you how I learned about Tennyson! Hope I didn't bore you, VK, with my little story. Maybe one of the nice things about being anonymous is we can discuss things we wouldn't normally talk about with strangers. |
No boredom of any type crypt in. Fascinating story and certainly one to remember. Yes, imagine that poster would be valuable today, along with her letter. Thank you. Living in Dallas, JFK and memories will always be a part of life. It is still remembered ...sitting in study hall in high school when learning of his death over the school intercom. That evening EVERYTHING in Dallas closed. Seriously, few Friday night, date night facilities of any type were open for business. Still remembered in some form or fashion are the events which followed. Ruby, grassy knoll, the funeral with the riderless horse. The pain that our city felt something so evil happened in our fair city. A stigma that lasted for years.
Thank you for sharing your story. Any story from here would not be near as entertaining, unless you might be interested that I once rode in the Texas State Fair parade many moons ago. In a convertible, not on a horse :-))
| Yes, the events in Dallas and the Kennedy memorial parade will remain etched in my mind too. The powers of envy, greed, and tyranny are strong and it requires a good and very strong-willed leader to combat them. But if the majority of voters become corrupt, the only hope of freedom is that the minority rises up in violence to overthrow the tyrants. Let's pray that it never come to that in this great country. And I remember the key part of the oath of military office where it clearly states that we do not owe our allegiance to any particular government leader at all:
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