The Suppressed Poems by Alfred Tennyson

We have had enough of motion, Weariness and wild alarm, Tossing on the tossing ocean, Where the tusked seahorse walloweth In a stripe of grassgreen calm, At noon-tide beneath the lea; And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth His foamfountains in the sea. Long enough the winedark wave our weary bark did carry. This is lovelier and sweeter, Men of Ithaca, this is meeter, In the hollow rosy vale to tarry, Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater! We will eat the Lotos, sweet As the yellow honeycomb, In the valley some, and some On the ancient heights divine; And no more roam, On the loud hoar foam, To the melancholy home At the limit of the brine, The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline.

We'll lift no more the shattered oar, No more unfurl the straining sail; With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale We will abide in the golden vale Of the Lotos-land, till the Lotos fail; We will not wander more. Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat On the solitary steeps, And the merry lizard leaps, And the foam-white waters pour; And the dark pine weeps, And the lithe vine creeps, And the heavy melon sleeps On the level of the shore: Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more, Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar, Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.