My answer to 'Ulysses', who never gave Penelope a thought. |
I am imprisoned on a craggy isle – O land of barren orchards, Ithaca, My gaol, for all of long eternity And there the hearth is shadowed by my guard; I, harnessed to the loom, cannot escape – The warp forever tangling with the woof, My task that of Arachne: I must weave Inconsequential threads into one cloth. No vision for the distaff line, no hope Of golden sunsets. We are but chattels, Discarded when the need for us is gone. While men may strive for glory, we remain And spin away what little time we have. What feats can I perform, what can I seek? Shall I set sail and follow in the wake Of him for whom I waited twenty years, Confront also the dangers he may face For all that he left me to wither here? Or tarry and face a deadlier foe – The suffocation of my mind and thought... Or else for satisfaction of my soul Embark upon a journey of mine own? An aged wife I am, but not too old To see the riches offered by the world, With no false vision but with open eyes – To see this world, and not Elysium. I love Tennyson, and particularly 'Ulysses'. I also love both the Illiad and the Odyssey. Yet there is an undoubted heartlessness in Tennyson's Odysseus, who leaves his wife after she waited twenty years for him without a second thought. This poem was my response to that. It is written with many references to 'Ulysses', and in the same syllabic pattern. |