Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken’d wholly,[19] 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[20] 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_[21]
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[22] mused a little space; He said, “She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott”.[23]
To many towered Camelot The yellow leaved water lily, The green sheathed daffodilly, Tremble in the water chilly, Round about Shalott.
... shiver, The sunbeam-showers break and quiver In the stream that runneth ever By the island, etc.
Underneath the bearded barley, The reaper, reaping late and early, Hears her ever chanting cheerly, Like an angel, singing clearly, O’er the stream of Camelot. Piling the sheaves in furrows airy, Beneath the moon, the reaper weary Listening whispers, “’tis the fairy Lady of Shalott”.
The little isle is all inrailed With a rose-fence, and overtrailed With roses: by the marge unhailed The shallop flitteth silkensailed, Skimming down to Camelot. A pearl garland winds her head: She leaneth on a velvet bed, Full royally apparelled, The Lady of Shalott.
No time hath she to sport and play: A charmed web she weaves alway. A curse is on her, if she stay Her weaving, either night or day
Therefore ... Therefore ... The Lady of Shalott.
She lives with little joy or fear Over the water running near, The sheep bell tinkles in her ear, Before her hangs a mirror clear, Reflecting towered Camelot. And, as the mazy web she whirls, She sees the surly village-churls.
[9] In these lines are to be found, says the present Lord Tennyson, the key to the mystic symbolism of the poem. But it is not easy to see how death could be an advantageous exchange for fancy-haunted solitude. The allegory is clearer in lines 114-115, for love will so break up mere phantasy.