The Lady of Shalott

  By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veiled
Slide the heavy barges trailed
By slow horses; and unhailed
The shallop flitteth silken-sailed
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?            
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

 

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towered Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

 

 

Part II

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot: 
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the curly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-haired page in crimson clad,
Goes by to towered Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

 

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

 

 

Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling through the leaves, 
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneeled
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glittered free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazoned baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burned like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often through the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

 

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;  
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lira," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over towered Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
            The Lady of Shalott.

 

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance —
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

 

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right —
The leaves upon her falling light —
Through the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

 

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turned to towered Camelot.
For ere she reached upon the tide 
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

 

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

 

 

"Emily, Awaken!"

The clock on the wall is ticking steadily on. Watch the second hand makes its round, now the minute hand is moving too, and now the hour is a thing of the past. A blog waits for promised posts, the girl who has promised to write so consistently? Nowhere to be found.

 

I beg pardon, this girl is quite easily found. It is true, however, she is not to be found with her fingers tapping away at her keyboard, but asleep on her bed.  She has gone off to have a long fall nap, a winter hibernation, and as she is properly bear like, she is not to be woken easily.

There she goes, hiding from the sunlight in a mountain of blankets, a fan roars like a hurricane, blowing the icy winds about her. The covers move, out pokes a bare foot, testing the open air. Will she awaken? Is the sunshine enough to open her eyes? Your question shows how little you know of Emily.

The door to her chambers is opened, her mountain of covers has been destroyed by a merciless hand. With a swift twist of a knob her hurricane has been silenced. “Emily, awaken!” comes a voice, much too cheerful when used in such a purpose. Oh cruel world, that wakes one with no true loves kiss to soften the blow.

On second thought, even true loves kiss is most definitely not worth waking up for. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White must have been awfully nutty.

 

 

As for Emily, she sleepeth on.

 

 

I’m listening to…

 I have just discovered how much I love listening to poems put to music. For the past week my favorite station on Pandora has been the Loreena McKennit one. I think it’s so beautiful because besides being lovely to listen to, each song is a story. Well, that can be said of almost every type of music, but it’s like reading a classic in comparison to a recent bestseller novel. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but listening to beautiful ballads of brave knights and fair ladies is quite delightful. I have to say, when simply reading poetry my mind sometimes wanders. I have a harder time of slipping into the story and living and breathing it like I do with prose, but with a musical accompaniment I find it easier to imagine out the story and enjoy the meter and rhythm to it. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but all I know is I find it much easier to sink into the tale when hearing it sung to me, rather than reading it myself. Though, I do like having the poem on hand if I miss a line or two.

 

 

 

I'm reading...

 

 

 

 

Emily of New Moon: Oh, my dear L. M. Montgomery, you know I can only survive being parted from your books for so long. I remember a time when 'Emily of New Moon' was one of my least favorite, actually, but with each reading I love it more.

 

 

Common Sense 101 (Lessons from G. K. Chesterton): Again, a post due soon. Again, really a must read.

 

Party Shoes: NOEL STREATFEILD WROTE A BOOK THAT I HAVEN'T READ YET? MUST READ.

 

 

Decline and Fall: After reading Brideshead Revisited I've always wanted to read another of Evelyn Waugh's books. I'm excited to start this one.

 

The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: I'm only about a hundred pages away from the end of this book. I've really enjoyed these. There's a couple that I've liked especially. My favorite are the few where he bamboozles you (isn't bamboozle an interesting word?) with some outrageous happening which turns out to be all the work of the character's imagination, and trickery of some other character. (The Offshore Pirate, Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les) I also quite like Bernice Bobs Her Hair. I just bought the movie Midnight in Paris which has Scott Fitzgerald as a character, so it's been fun to read some of his stories after watching that movie again.

 

Brideshead Revisited: I just really want to read this book again.

 

The Fault in Our Stars: I just finished reading this one and honestly I haven't really sorted out my thoughts on it entirely. I felt like the book captured the characters very well, without my ever feeling precisely fond of them. Perhaps simply because they and I would not be "Kindred Spirits," if we were to meet. We would have different life-styles, values and what-not. That doesn't make me not appreciate them, as characters I felt very much as if they captured a very real sort of person, and also exemplified the author's main focus of questions on life and death. I got rather tired of the amount of sentences begining with 'and' or 'but' (which really ought to be an exception to the rule rather than the rule itself) and fragment sentences. (I feel rather guilty writing this as I know I'm a far from perfect writer myself...but...) Anyhow, I'm still deciding what I really think about it, so enough for now.

 

A Picture thought I'm sharing...

 

 

I just felt like taking a picture of some crayons.