Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot, Though the squally eastwind keenly Blew, with folded arms serenely By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.
With a steady, stony glance?
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance?
She looked down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day,
She loosed the chain, and down she lay,
Th e broad stream bore her far away,
Th e Lady of Shalott.
As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boathead wound along
Th e willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her deathsong,
The Lady of Shalott.
A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darkened wholly,
An d her smooth face sharpened slowly
Turned to towered Camelot:
For ere she reached upon the tide
Th e first house by the waterside,
Singing in her song she died,
Th e Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By gardenwall and gallery,
A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Deadcold, between the houses high.
Dead into towered Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the planked wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
'The Lady of Shalott.'
The y crossed themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, ministrel, abbot, squire and guest.
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
Th e wellfed wits at Camelot.
'The web was woven curiously
.
A14 / POEMS IN PROCESS
The charm is broken utterly, Draw near and fear not?this is I, The Lady of Shalott.'
From Tithonus2 [Lines 1-10]
[TRINITY COLLEGE MANUSCRIPT]
