The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd 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 blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot;
As often thro' 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 burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
'Tirra lirra,' by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd 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,

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The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower'd Camelot;

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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-
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,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd 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 cross'd 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.'

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MARIANA IN THE SOUTH

First printed in 1833, but changed so much in 1842 that we give the original form in full in the Notes.

WITH one black shadow at its feet,

The house thro' 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.'

She, as her carol sadder grew,

From brow and bosom slowly down Thro' 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,

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'Madonna, sad is night and morn,' And 'Ah,' she sang, 'to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.'

She breathed in sleep a lower moan, And murmuring, as at night and

morn,

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She thought, My spirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, and is forlorn.' 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 whisper'd, with a stifled moan More inward than at night or morn, 'Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten and die forlorn.'

And, rising, from her bosom drew

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Old letters, breathing of her worth, For Love,' they said, 'must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth.' An image seem'd 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?'

But sometimes in the falling day
An image seem'd to pass the door,
To look into her eyes and say,

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'But thou sha't 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

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The day to night, the night to

Then did my response clearer fall: 'No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.'

To which he answer'd scoffingly: Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who 'll weep for thy deficiency?

'Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference

Is cancell'd in the world of sense?'

I would have said, 'Thou canst not know,' But my full heart, that work'd below, Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

Again the voice spake unto me: 'Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely 't were better not to be.

'Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep;

Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.'

I said: The years with change advance; If I make dark my countenance,

I shut my life from happier chance.

'Some turn this sickness yet might take, Even yet.' But he: What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake ?'

I wept: 'Tho' I should die, I know
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;

'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought
Still moving after truth long sought,
Will learn new things when I am not.'

'Yet,' said the secret voice, 'some time,
Sooner or later, will gray prime
Make thy grass hoar with early rime.

'Not less swift souls that yearn for light,
Rapt after heaven's starry flight,
Would sweep the tracts of day and night.

'Not less the bee would range her cells, 7
The furzy prickle fire the dells,
The foxglove cluster dappled bells.'

I said that all the years invent;
Each month is various to present
The world with some development.

If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?

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'O dull, one-sided voice,' said I, ‹ Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die?

Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.

There is one remedy for all.

'Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain.

"Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labor little worth.

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'That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee-hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade;

'Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind.

'For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.

'Cry, faint not: either Truth is born
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,
Or in the gateways of the morn.

'Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.

'Sometimes a little corner shines,
As over rainy mist inclines
A gleaming crag with belts of pines.

'I will go forward, sayest thou,

I shall not fail to und her now.
Look up, the fold is on her brow.

If straight thy track, or if oblique,

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strike,

Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;

And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower

'Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.'

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Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and frozen to permanence:

For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?'

'Consider well,' the voice replied,

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His face, that two hours since hath died; Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?