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A Woman Speaks

Dreamed in winter c.1913? by John Masefield

This poem appeared to me in a dream one winter morning some years ago.

In the dream, I was aware of a tall lady dressed for out-of-doors, with furs and a picture hat. I was aware, at the same time, of the whole of her past life, and of the fact that she was looking, for the first time, southwestwards upon Lincoln’s Inn Fields, early on a calm, sunny Sunday morning. I saw the Fields as she did, in utter calm, sunny distinctness, as from the north-eastern pavement; the pigeons were picking food, the sun was shining, each brick and stone was distinct.

I was aware of the fact that she had suddenly realised that life might be quiet like this, and that were it so, it would be wonderful. At the same time, I was intensely aware of the whole of this poem, which explained her past, what she saw and what she felt.

As she passed out of the dream, the whole of the poem appeared engraven in high relief on an oblong metal plate, from which I wrote it down.

Bitter it is, indeed, in human Fate
When Life’s supreme temptation comes too late.
I had a ten years’ schooling, where I won
Prizes for Headache and Caparison.                 [Caparison: adornment, fashion]

I married well; I kept a husband warm
With twenty general years of gentle charm.
We wandered much, where’er our kind resort,
But not till Sunday to the Inns of Court.

So then imagine what a joy to see
The town’s grey vast and unappeaséd sea
Suddenly still, and what a hell to learn
Life might be quiet, could I but return.

SOURCE: The Dream and other Poems by John Masefield (1923), pp.38-9. I learned of this dream-poem in Deirdre Barrett's The Committee of Sleep, 2001, p.59.
DATE: dreamt "some years" before 1923. The dream seems untouched by WW1, so more likely pre-1914, though not much, or it'd be in a previous collection.


LISTS AND LINKS: holidays & vacations - by the sea - simplicity & austerity - life-arcs - sadness & regret - poems seen or written inside dreams - dream-poems in general - an epic dream poem by Masefield: The Dream of Daniel

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