Yesterday, my British literature students taught Tennyson’s poetry to each other. The student who discussed “The Lotos-Eaters” did a fine job drawing attention to the apathy conveyed in these lines:

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland

Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore

Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.

Then some one said, “We will return no more”