Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Lady of Shalott

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.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey 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?

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."

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

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
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, burning bright,
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 flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

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 pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around 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 --
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 darkened 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 around 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 crossed 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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Book Choice: The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Emily Dickinson Tribute Song

Virginia Woolf - Monday or Tuesday

Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his
way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant,
absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and
remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, perfect--the
sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or white feathers,
for ever and ever--

Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for ever
desiring--(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels strike
divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)--for ever desiring--(the
clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is midday; light
sheds gold scales; children swarm)--for ever desiring truth. Red is the
dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark,
shout, cry "Iron for sale"--and truth?

Radiating to a point men's feet and women's feet, black or
gold-encrusted--(This foggy weather--Sugar? No, thank you--The
commonwealth of the future)--the firelight darting and making the room
red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a
van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass
preserves fur coats--

Flaunted, leaf--light, drifting at corners, blown across the wheels,
silver-splashed, home or not home, gathered, scattered, squandered in
separate scales, swept up, down, torn, sunk, assembled--and truth?

Now to recollect by the fireside on the white square of marble. From
ivory depths words rising shed their blackness, blossom and penetrate.
Fallen the book; in the flame, in the smoke, in the momentary sparks--or
now voyaging, the marble square pendant, minarets beneath and the Indian
seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint--truth? content with
closeness?

Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then
bares them.

Book Choice: Night and Day

Poem of the week: Memories of West Street and Lepke by Robert Lowell

Collected Poems

Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear.

These are the tranquilized Fifties,
and I am forty.  Ought I to regret my seedtime?
I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
and made my manic statement,
telling off the state and president, and then
sat waiting sentence in the bull pen
beside a negro boy with curlicues
of marijuana in his hair.

Given a year,
I walked on the roof of the West Street Jail, a short
enclosure like my school soccer court,
and saw the Hudson River once a day
through sooty clothesline entanglements
and bleaching khaki tenements.
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew their tops and beat him black and blue.

I was so out of things, I'd never heard
of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Are you a C.O.?" I asked a fellow jailbird.
"No," he answered, "I'm a J.W."
He taught me the "hospital tuck,"
and pointed out the T-shirted back
of Murder Incorporated's Czar Lepke,
there piling towels on a rack,
or dawdling off to his little segregated cell full
of things forbidden to the common man:
a portable radio, a dresser, two toy American
flags tied together with a ribbon of Easter palm.
Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration on the electric chair
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections. . . .

Waiting by the bed...

...to be read are a lot of books. One of them is the latest by the great David Baldacci Hell's Corner. Baldacci is the only thriller writer who hasn't let me down so far, so I really look forward to reading this. Next on the pile is Edge: A Novel by Jeffery Deaver, yet another on of my favorite crime fiction writers. Sitting at the side is Minette Walter's The Breaker but also Crossfire by japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe. After that I will accept the invitation by Anne Rice to visit the Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles) before travelling to the Far East yet again to read a few Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (Tuttle Classics) delivered by Mr Edogawa Rampo. 2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño is the epic modern masterpiece that will follow. And then it will be Nelson Mandela month. Three books are waiting to grab my attention: Conversations with Myself, Long Walk to Freedom-the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela: Mcdougal Littell Literature Connections (HRW Library) and Mandela: The Authorised Biography. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall: A Novel is one of the books that I didn't have the time to read last year and so it should come next, along with the poetic Possession by A.S. Byatt. I also intend to travel to Japan once more with Ryu Murakami and his Almost Transparent Bluenovel and last but not least I will take a dive into the fantasy world with Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

Hitomi Kanehara – Autofiction Quotes

Autofiction

What is hysteria, after all? It’s a disease of the pussy.

I live with the sole purpose of making my boring life even more boring by providing a boring commentary for my everyday boring life through a boring voice in my head.

I need to stay calm. Restrain myself. I have this tendency to think I’m right and make others feel bad. I need to remember that even I’m wrong sometimes.

There is really no point in basing one illusion on another.

Nobody has a time or place where they are free from the danger of death. People forget that, People live their lives with the basic assumption that they will still be alive the day after. I can’t live like that.

To love is to die.

Anger is similar to maggots. It multiplies in no time at all and quickly reaches an uncontrollable state.

I’ve chosen a life in which there is no place for excuses.

I’m living my life as a kite that has no home to go to.

Endurance is what my life is all about… I basically need to endure every moment of my life…

Perhaps hell is a fun place and even fun places can be hell, or perhaps hell is turning into a fun place day after day.

Jack London - The Apostate

"If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!"
The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder.
"Lemme 'lone!"
It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former instinctively following the latter in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into his body.
As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.

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Buy Jack London books at Amazon The Call of the Wild, White Fang & To Build a Fire (Modern Library Classics)

Faith Thomas - The Piano

"Why do mom and dad always have to be away?" Dott asked in her whiney voice as she asks everyday now. "Do we really have to stay with grandmot…?" "Dott stop! I tell you this all the time, mom and dad are at work and they will be home in a few days." Eliza Rosalyne knew that she was lying to her sister; she knew where her parents were but didn’t find it necessary to tell her little sister. Eliza Rosalyne and Dotts’ mother and father were getting divorced and the children had to live with their grandmother until everything was final. Eliza Rosalyne wanted to protect her little sister from the pain and thoughts that her parents were no longer together. "Go to bed Dott, we have a very long day tomorrow." Tomorrow was Sunday and that was chore day in her grandmother’s house. Their grandmother’s house was more like a Victorian mansion; it was a huge, old dark house on a lake as if it were right out of a horror film.

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An introduction to the poetry of William Blake

The one thing everyone knows about William Blake is that he was a visual artist as well as a poet. It might be thought that since he took such trouble to illustrate his poetry, or to use his word, illuminate it, and because his designs are so brilliant and sometimes so powerful, the words can't be appreciated properly without the pictures.
I don't agree. If that were true, it would mean that there was little point in a publication like this. Some of his designs are majestic in their power and authority, exquisite in their detail, tender, awe-inspiring, profoundly original: all that is true.
Nevertheless, words and pictures are different things. We can memorise the words of The Tyger and reproduce them without loss every time we recite it, because words live in our mouths and our ears; we can't do the same with the picture that goes with it, because pictures live differently. The power of Blake's greatest poetry is independent of the designs that surround it. If the designs had been magnificent and the poetry banal, we would never remember a word of it.
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Buy the poetry and prose of William Blake at Amazon The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake

An introduction to the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The very name Samuel Taylor Coleridge seems to reverberate like some mysterious timpani. Those magical titles of his vibrate and echo over an infinite distance: Kubla Khan, The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Frost at Midnight … Or for that matter the notorious Person on Business from Porlock. Almost unnecessary, one might think, to turn back to the poems themselves at all (do they still do so in schools?). Those proverbial titles seem to hold all the poetry.
So it easy to forget how strange, how captivating, how haunted Coleridge's actual poems are. Why is it, for example, that so many of them are set at night? Why do their outer landscapes always dissolve into inner dream worlds? Why are they so full of guilt? And yet why are they also so often suffused with beautiful, healing, glimmering moonlight?

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Buy his poetry at Amazon The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)