Ultima Thule
Dedication To G. W. G
Ultima Thule - context Summary
Published in 1880
Written late in Longfellow’s career and published in 1880, "Ultima Thule" frames an elderly speaker’s maritime metaphor for life’s voyage. After youthful sailing toward a mythic Hesperides, the poem shifts to stormy, remote isles and finally to an "Ultima Thule" where sails are lowered and a temporary rest is taken. It reads as a concise meditation on fatigue, final harbors, and acceptance in the poet’s later years.
Read Complete AnalysesWith favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah! that was long ago. How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth! Whither, ah, whither? Are not these The tempest-haunted Orcades, Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar, And wreck and sea-weed line the shore? Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle! Here in thy harbors for a while We lower our sails; a while we rest From the unending, endless quest.
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