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, through 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,
She left the web, she left the loom;
She made three paces through 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.
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The ale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complain
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—
Through 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."
THE hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.
A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spur,
With a lash of a bramble she rides now; Through brakes and through briers, O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the spirit that guides now.
GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown,
An' peek'd in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace fill'd the room's one side,
With half a cord o' wood in--
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetch'd back from Concord busted.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seem'd warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she look'd full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.
'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A, 1,
Clean grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton,
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd spark'd it with full twenty gals,
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells -
All is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curl'd maple,
The side she bresh'd felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She know'd the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she look'd some!
She seemed to've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' know'd it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,-
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper,
He kin' o' l'iter'd on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
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