Note 4 — Early Poems (continued 3)
Reading edition
Cf. W. R. Spencer (Poems, p. 166):— What eye with clear account remarks The ebbing of his glass, When all its sands are diamond sparks That dazzle as they pass. But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson’s subtly beautiful image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever made.