A Dream of Frances Speedwell

Dreamed 1971? by Robert Graves

SOURCE: Collected Poems (1975), quoted in The Oxford Book of Dreams (ed. Stephen Brook, 1983)

I fell in love at my first evening party. You were tall and fair, just seventeen perhaps, Talking to my two sisters. I kept silent And never since have loved a tall fair girl, Until last night in the small windy hours When, floating up an unfamiliar staircase And into someone's bedroom, there I found her Posted beside the window in half-light Wearing that same white dress with lacy sleeves. She beckoned. I came closer. We embraced Inseparably until the dream faded. Her eyes shone clear and blue ... Who was it, though, impersonated you?