ABSTRACT
Published 1889. Recited Aug. 1888 (Mem. ii 346), though H.T. also says that it was written after T.’s severe illness, which began Sept. 1888. T. presumably revised it. ‘The words “far, far away” had always a strange charm for me’ (T. on his early childhood). He made many changes to the drafts in H.Nbks 54 and 87 (A and B below), including the change from ‘I’, to ‘he’ throughout. He altered the sequence of lines and stanzas, and the poem cost him great difficulty. Stanzas that found no place in 1889 are given below, l. 18n. A trial edition of 1889 (Virginia) has only four stanzas. T. rewrote the poem in the Trinity trial edition or proofs (T.Nbk 27).
