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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)

expand sectionI. 
POEMS
expand sectionII. 
POEMS
expand sectionIII. 
ENOCH ARDEN AND IN MEMORIAM
collapse sectionVII. 
THE PRINCESS AND MAUD
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[section]
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[section]
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Additional lines and fragments of verse extracted from the notes.
 V. 
IDYLLS OF THE KING
expand sectionIII. 
BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
expand sectionIV. 
DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS
expand sectionVIII. 
QUEEN MARY AND HAROLD
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BECKET AND OTHER PLAYS

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112

FAR—FAR—AWAY.
[_]

(FOR MUSIC.)

Before I could read I was in the habit on a stormy day of spreading my arms to the wind and crying out, “I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind,” and the words “far, far away” had always a strange charm for me.

What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far—far—away?
What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far—far—away.
What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far—far-away?
A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far—far—away?
113

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far—far—away?
What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far-far-away?
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