A Dream of Fair Women

First published in 1833 but very extensively altered on its republication in 1842. It had been written by June, 1832, and appears to have been originally entitled 'Legend of Fair Women' (see Spedding's letter dated 21st June, 1832, 'Life', i., 116). In nearly every edition between 1833 and 1853 it was revised, and perhaps no poem proves more strikingly the scrupulous care which Tennyson took to improve what he thought susceptible of improvement.

The work which inspired it, Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women', was written about 1384, thus "preluding" by nearly two hundred years the "spacious times of great Elizabeth". There is no resemblance between the poems beyond the fact that both are visions and both have as their heroines illustrious women who have been unfortunate. Cleopatra is the only one common to the two poems. Tennyson's is an exquisite work of art--the transition from the anarchy of dreams to the dreamland landscape and to the sharply denned figures--the skill with which the heroines (what could be more perfect that Cleopatra and Jephtha's daughter?) are chosen and contrasted--the wonderful way in which the Iphigenia of Euripides and Lucretius and the Cleopatra of Shakespeare are realised are alike admirable. 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