Still as the boathead wound along

The 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,

And her smooth face sharpened slowly

Turned to towered Camelot :

For ere she reached upon the tide

The first house by the waterside,

Singing in her song she died,

The 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."

They crossed themselves, their stars they blest, Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest.

There lay a parchment on her breast,

That puzzled more than all the rest,

The wellfed wits at Camelot.

"The web was woven curiously

The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not

this is 1,

The Lady of Shalott."

MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.*

BEHIND the barren hill upsprung

With pointed rocks against the light,

The crag sharpshadowed overhung

Each glaring creek and inlet bright.

Far, far, one lightblue ridge was seen,
Looming like baseless fairyland;

Eastward a slip of burning sand,
Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green.
Down in the dry salt-marshes stood

That house darklatticed. Not a breath Swayed the sick vineyard underneath, Or moved the dusty southernwood.

* See Poems, chiefly Lyrical.

"Madonna," with melodious moan

Sang Mariana, night and morn,

"Madonna! lo! I am all alone,

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn."

She, as her carol sadder grew,

From her warm brow and bosom down

Through rosy taper fingers drew

Her streaming curls of deepest brown

On either side, and made appear,

Still-lighted in a secret shrine,

Her melancholy eyes divine,

The home of woe without a tear.

"Madonna," with melodious moan

Sang Mariana, night and morn,

"Madonna! lo! I am all alone,

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn."

When the dawncrimson changed, and past

Into deep orange o'er the sea,

Low on her knees herself she cast,

Unto our lady prayed she.

She moved her lips, she prayed alone,
She praying disarrayed and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
In the darklustrous mirror shone.

"Madonna," in a low clear tone
Said Mariana, night and morn,

Low she mourned, "I am all alone,
Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn."

At noon she slumbered. All along

The silvery field, the large leaves talked

With one another, as among

The spiked maize in dreams she walked.
The lizard leapt the sunlight played:
She heard the callow nestling lisp,

And brimful meadow-runnels crisp,

In the full-leaved platan-shade.

In sleep she breathed in a lower tone, Murmuring as at night and morn, "Madonna! lo! I am all alone,

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn."