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The Works of Tennyson

The Eversley Edition: Annotated by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson
Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

collapse sectionI. 
POEMS
  
TO THE QUEEN.
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JUVENILIA.
expand sectionII. 
POEMS
expand sectionIII. 
ENOCH ARDEN AND IN MEMORIAM
expand sectionVII. 
THE PRINCESS AND MAUD
 V. 
IDYLLS OF THE KING
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BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
expand sectionIV. 
DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS
expand sectionVIII. 
QUEEN MARY AND HAROLD
expand sectionIX. 
BECKET AND OTHER PLAYS

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V.

Hoped for a dawn and it came, but the promise had faded away;
We had past from a cheerless night to the glare of a drearier day;
He is only a cloud and a smoke who was once a pillar of fire,
229

The guess of a worm in the dust and the shadow of its desire—
Of a worm as it writhes in a world of the weak trodden down by the strong,
Of a dying worm in a world, all massacre, murder, and wrong.
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