 The Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli ( 1855 – 1912 ) stated that his long lyric poem L 'ultimo viaggio was an attempt to reconcile the portrayals of Ulysses in Dante and Tennyson with Tiresias 's prophecy that Ulysses would die " a mild death off the sea " . Pascoli 's Ulysses leaves Ithaca to retrace his epic voyage rather than begin another . 
