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.'

THE TWO VOICES.

A STILL Small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery,

Were it not better not to be?'

Then to the still small voice I said;

'Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.'

To which the voice did urge reply;

"To-day I saw the dragon-fly

Come from the wells where he did lie.

'An inner impulse rent the veil

Of his old husk: from head to tail

Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

'He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;

Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew

A living flash of light he flew.'

I said, 'When first the world began,
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.

'She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast.'

Thereto the silent voice replied; 'Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.

"This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe

Is boundless better, boundless worse.

"Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?'

It spake, moreover, in my mind:

"Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind,

Yet is there plenty of the kind.'

Then did my response clearer fall: 'No compound of this earthly ball

Is like another, all in all.'

124

THE TWO VOICES.

To which he answer'd scoffingly;
'Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,
Who'll weep for thy deficiency?

'Or will one beam be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference

Is cancell'd in the world of sense?'

I would have said, 'Thou canst not know'
But my full heart, that work'd below,
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

Again the voice spake unto me:

'Thou art so steep'd in misery,

Surely 'twere better not to be.

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,

Nor any train of reason keep:

Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.'

I said, "The years with change advance:

If I make dark my countenance,

I shut my life from happier chance.

'Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet.' But he: 'What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?'