by Laura Barber
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.’
PART II
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 thro’ 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 thro’ 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 thro’ 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.
PART III
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 armour 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,
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 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 –
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.’
THOMAS HARDY
The Voice
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing t
o me
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan th’expense of many a vanished sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
THOMAS HARDY
The Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
EDMUND SPENSER
Sonnet
Oft when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings,
In mind to mount up to the purest sky,
It down is weighed with thought of earthly things
And clogged with burden of mortality,
Where when that sovereign beauty it doth spy,
Resembling heaven’s glory in her light,
Drawn with sweet pleasure’s bait, it back doth fly,
And unto heaven forgets her former flight.
There my frail fancy, fed with full delight,
Doth bathe in bliss and mantleth most at ease:
Ne thinks of other heaven, but how it might
Her heart’s desire with most contentment please.
Heart need not wish none other happiness,
But here on earth to have such heaven’s bliss.
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
Everyone Sang
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.
Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away… O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Acknowledgements
For sharing their favourites or offering their help, I am grateful to Susan and John Barber, Stephen Brown, Florence and Ian Knapp, Kevin Jackson and Olivia McCannon. And at Penguin, I must thank Adam Freudenheim for his generosity in making this modest poetic proposal, and Rachel Love for her assistance in making it happen.
I dedicate this book to Matilda and Finn, whose heads are full of magic words and who always remember the next line.
LB
The editor and publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint copyright material in this book as follows:
EMILY DICKINSON: ‘This World is not Conclusion’ reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College, from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
ROBERT FROST: ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ from The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem, published by Jonathan Cape and reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. And copyright 1969 by Henry Holt and Company and reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC:.
TED HUGHES: ‘Wind’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 2005). By permission of the publisher.
LOUIS MACNIECE: ‘Snow’ from Collected Poems published by Faber & Faber. By permission of David Higham Associates Ltd.
JOHN MASEFIELD: ‘Sea-Fever’ from Collected Poems (William Heinemann, 1923), permission granted by the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield.
SIEGRIED SASSOON: ‘Everyone Sang’ from Collected Poems, published by Faber & Faber; copyright © Siegfried Sassoon, used by kind permission of George Sassoon.
DYLAN THOMAS: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ from Collected Poems, published by J. M. Dent. By permission of David Higham Associates Ltd.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: ‘This Is Just To Say’ from Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume 1: 1909–1939, edited by A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan (2000) by permission of Carcanet Press Limited.
W. B. YEATS: ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Gráinne Yeats, Executrix of the Estate of Michael Butler Yeats.
Every effort has been made to trace and contact the copyright holders prior to publication. If notified, the publisher undertakes to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.
Index of Poets
Anonymous (17th century) 62
Arnold, Matthew (1822–88) 12
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth (1806–61) 81
Blake, William (1757–1827) 23, 54
Browning, Robert (1812–89) 82
Burns, Robert (1759–96) 75
Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788–1824) 15
Campion, Thomas (1567–1620) 73
Carroll, Lewis (1832–98) 9, 68
Clare, John (1793–1864) 26
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) 4, 46
Davidson, John (1857–1909) 28
Dickinson, Emily (1830–86) 25
Donne, John (1572–1631) 79
Frost, Robert (1874–1963) 49
Gray, Thomas (1716–71) 39
Hardy, Thomas (1840–1928) 45, 63, 91
Henley, W. E. (1849–1903) 18
Herbert, George (1593–1633) 56
Herrick, Robert (1591–1674)
78
Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–89) 8, 21, 66
Housman, A. E. (1859–1936) 61
Howitt, Mary (1799–1888) 69
Hughes, Ted (1930–98) 43
Keats, John (1795–1821) 29, 67
Kipling, Rudyard (1865–1936) 22
Lawrence, D. H. (1885–1930) 92
Lear, Edward (1812–88) 34
MacNeice, Louis (1907–63) 53
Marlowe, Christopher (1564–93) 31
Marvell, Andrew (1621–78) 76
Masefield, John (1878–1967) 27
Mew, Charlotte (1869–1928) 52
Moore, Clement Clarke (1779–1863) 50
Owen, Wilfred (1893–1919) 14
Rossetti, Christina G. (1830–94) 33, 58, 72
Sassoon, Siegfried (1886–1967) 97
Scott, Sir Walter (1771–1832) 19
Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) 17, 41, 74, 83, 93
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822) 11
Smart, Christopher (1722–71) 36
Spenser, Edmund (c. 1552–99) 96
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850–94) 64
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809–92) 3, 84
Thomas, Dylan (1914–53) 16
Thomas, Edward (1878–1917) 65
Williams, William Carlos (1883–1963) 57
Wordsworth, William (1770–1850) 7
Wyatt, Sir Thomas (1503–42) 71
Yeats, W. B. (1865–1939) 6
Index of Titles and First Lines
Adlestrop 65
Anthem for Doomed Youth 14
Auguries of Innocence ix, 54
Birthday, A 33
‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!’ 17
‘Busy old fool, unruly sun’ 79
Call, The 52
‘Come live with me, and be my love’ 31
Coming of Good Luck, The 78
Crocodile, The 68
‘Daffodils’ 7
Darkling Thrush, The 94
Do not go gentle into that good night 16
Dover Beach 12
Eagle, The 3
Everyone Sang 97
‘Everyone suddenly burst out singing’ 97
Fallow Deer at the Lonely House, The 45