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The Works of Tennyson

The Eversley Edition: Annotated by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson

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375

[A Dream of Fair Women]

[Lines not used in the final version]

As when a man that sails in a balloon,
Down-looking, sees the solid shining ground
Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,
Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:
And takes his flags and waves them to the mob,
That shout below, all faces turn'd to where
Glows ruby-like the far-up crimson globe,
Fill'd with a finer air;
So, lifted high, the poet at his will
Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all,
Higher thro' secret splendours mounting still,
Self-poised, nor fears to fall,
Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.
While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory,
Sow'd my deep-furrow'd thought with many a name,
Whose glory will not die.”