The poem opened in 1833 with the following strangely irrelevant verses, excised in 1842, which as Fitzgerald observed “make a perfect poem by themselves without affecting the ‘dream’”:— As when a man, that sails in a balloon, Downlooking 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 turned to where Glows ruby-like the far up crimson globe, Filled 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, Sowed my deepfurrowed thought with many a name, Whose glory will not die. I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, _“The Legend of Good Women,”_ long ago Sung by the morning star[1] of song, who made His music heard below; Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still. And, for a while, the knowledge of his art Held me above the subject, as strong gales Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart, Brimful of those wild tales, Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death.[2] Those far-renowned brides of ancient song Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars; And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs: And I saw crowds in column’d sanctuaries; And forms that pass’d[3] at windows and on roofs Of marble palaces; Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall Dislodging pinnacle and parapet Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;[4] Lances in ambush set; And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire; White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts, And ever climbing higher; Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, And hush’d seraglios. So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, Torn from the fringe of spray. I started once, or seem’d to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek. And once my arm was lifted to hew down, A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town; And then, I know not how, All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d and brought Into the gulfs of sleep.