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 seër 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 wharves 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.”
I.
WITH one black shadow at its feet,
The house through all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But Ave Mary," made she moan,
And "Ave Mary," night and morn, And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.”
II.
She, as her carol sadder. grew,
From brow and bosom slowly down, Through rosy taper fingers drew
Her streaming curls of deepest brown To left and right, and made appear,
Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
Her melancholy eyes divine,
The home of woe without a tear.
And "Ave Mary," was her moan,
Madonna, sad is night and morn;'
And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
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III.
Till all the crimson changed, and past
Into deep orange o'er the sea,
Low on her knees herself she cast,
Before Our Lady murmured she; Complaining, "Mother, give me grace
To help me of my weary load." And on the liquid mirror glowed The clear perfection of her face.
"Is this the form," she made her moan,
"That won his praises night and morn?" And "Ah," she said, "but I wake alone, I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn."
IV.
Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt;
Till now at noon she slept again,
And seemed knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.
She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and moru, She thought, "My spirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."
V.
Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
She felt he was and was not there.
:
She woke the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.
She whispered, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn, "Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten, and die forlorn."
VI.
And, rising, from her bosom drew
Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For "Love," they said, "must needs be true
To what is loveliest upon earth."
An image seemed to pass the door,
To look at her with slight, and say, "But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone for evermore."
"O cruel heart," she changed her tone, "And cruel love, whose end is scorn, Is this the end to be left alone,
To live forgotten, and die forlorn!"
VII.
But sometimes in the falling day
An image seemed to pass the door,
To look into her eyes and say,
"But thou shalt be alone no more." And flaming downward over all
From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.
"The day to night," she made her moan, "The day to night, the night to morn, And day and night I am left alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
VIII.
At eve a dry cicala sung,
There came a sound as of the sea; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And leaned upon the balcony. There all in spaces rosy-bright
Large Hesper glittered on her tears,
And deepening through the silent spheres,
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
And weeping then she made her moan,
"The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
THY dark eyes opened not,
Nor first revealed themselves to English air,
For there is nothing here,
Which, from the outward to the inward brought,
Moulded thy baby thought.
Far off from human neighborhood,
Thou wert born, on a summer morn,
A mile beneath the cedar-wood.
Thy bounteous forehead was not fanned
With breezes from our oaken glades,
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land
Of lavish lights, and floating shades:
And flattering thy childish thought
The oriental fairy brought,
At the moment of thy birth,
From old well-heads of haunted rills,
And the hearts of purple hills,
And shadowed coves on a sunny shore,
The choicest wealth of all the earth,
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