The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson eBook

this no subsequent material alterations were made.  The poem is more purely fanciful than Tennyson perhaps was willing to own; certainly his explanation of the allegory, as he gave it to Canon Ainger, is not very intelligible:  “The new-born love for something, for some one in the wide world from which she has been so long excluded, takes her out of the region of shadows into that of realities”.  Poe’s commentary is most to the point:  “Why do some persons fatigue themselves in endeavours to unravel such phantasy pieces as the ‘Lady of Shallot’?  As well unweave the ventum textilem".—­’Democratic Review’, Dec., 1844, quoted by Mr. Herne Shepherd.  Mr. Palgrave says (selection from the ’Lyric Poems of Tennyson’, p. 257) the poem was suggested by an Italian romance upon the Donna di Scalotta.  On what authority this is said I do not know, nor can I identify the novel.  In Novella, lxxxi., a collection of novels printed at Milan in 1804, there is one which tells but very briefly the story of Elaine’s love and death, “Qui conta come la Damigella di scalot mori per amore di Lancealotto di Lac,” and as in this novel Camelot is placed near the sea, this may be the novel referred to.  In any case the poem is a fanciful and possibly an allegorical variant of the story of Elaine, Shalott being a form, through the French, of Astolat.

PART I

  On either side the river lie
  Long fields of barley and of rye,
  That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
  And thro’ the field the road runs by
  To many-tower’d Camelot;
  And up and down the people go,
  Gazing where the lilies blow
  Round an island there below,
  The island of Shalott. [1]

  Willows whiten, aspens quiver, [2]
  Little breezes dusk and shiver
  Thro’ 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-veil’d
  Slide the heavy barges trail’d
  By slow horses; and unhail’d
  The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
  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? [3]

  Only reapers, reaping early
  In among the bearded barley,
  Hear a song that echoes cheerly
  From the river winding clearly,
  Down to tower’d Camelot: 
  And by the moon the reaper weary,
  Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
  Listening, whispers “’Tis the fairy
  Lady of Shalott”. [4]

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 [5]
  To look down to Camelot. 
  She knows not what the ‘curse’ may be,
  And so [6] she weaveth steadily,
  And little other care hath she,
  The Lady of Shalott.