PART IV.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods are waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
  Over tower’d 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—­
Thro’ 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,
Til’ her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,
  Turn’d to tower’d 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.”

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

* * * * *

IF WE HAD THE TIME.

If I had the time to find a place
And sit me down full face to face
  With my better self, that cannot show
  In my daily life that rushes so: 
It might be then I would see my soul
Was stumbling still towards the shining goal,
  I might be nerved by the thought sublime,—­
    If I had the time!

If I had the time to let my heart
Speak out and take in my life a part,
  To look about and to stretch a hand
  To a comrade quartered in no-luck land;
Ah, God!  If I might but just sit still
And hear the note of the whip-poor-will,
  I think that my wish with God’s would rhyme—­
    If I had the time!

If I had the time to learn from you
How much for comfort my word could do;
  And I told you then of my sudden will
  To kiss your feet when I did you ill;
If the tears aback of the coldness feigned
Could flow, and the wrong be quite explained,—­
  Brothers, the souls of us all would chime,
    If we had the time!