Page:Enoch Arden, etc - Tennyson - 1864.djvu/119

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SEA DREAMS.
103
Down in the water, a long reef of gold,Or what seem’d gold: and I was glad at firstTo think that in our often-ransack’d worldStill so much gold was left; and then I fear’dLest the gay navy there should splinter on it,And fearing waved my arm to warn them off;An idle signal, for the brittle fleet(I thought I could have died to save it) near’d,Touch’d, clink’d, and clash’d, and vanish’d, and I woke,I heard the clash so clearly. Now I seeMy dream was Life; the woman honest Work;And my poor venture but a fleet of glassWreck’d on a reef of visionary gold.’
 ‘Nay,’ said the kindly wife to comfort him,‘You raised your arm, you tumbled down and brokeThe glass with little Margaret’s medicine it it;And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream:A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.’
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