Well, Readers, having thought about how some of my reading time has been ambushed by doom-scrolling instead, I have been getting stuck in to both fiction and non-fiction this month. I am really enjoying ‘Homer Haunted’ by Henry Power – in the midst of all the excitement about Christopher Nolan’s film, I was glad to read a book which explains many of the different ways in which Homer’s epics have influenced subsequent writers. It starts with George Chapman, who translated the Odyssey and the Iliad back in the 16th century, and ends with living authors. He shows how the times in which the translators, authors and poets lived influenced what they took from the cornucopia which is Homer’s work, and how Homer continues to influence us to the present day. It’s very readable, and I’ve found myself learning all sorts of things, which is always refreshing. Highly recommended if you have the slightest interest in Homer.

Now, for fiction I’ve been piling through the Booker Longlist, so here’s the verdict so far. First up is Elizabeth Strout’s ‘The Things We Never Say’.

I like Elizabeth Strout’s work – she writes about a small community in Massachusetts, and about the relationships between the people there, but this makes her books sound cosy and domestic. They are domestic, but existential rather than cosy – behind the straightforwardness of the events, there’s a whole world of pain, loneliness and confusion. And yet, there’s always hope, of a sort. I enjoyed this book a lot, but while I’d like to see Strout win, after being short-listed several times, I’m not sure that this book is ‘different’ enough to tip the balance this year.

Next up was ‘The Vivisectors’ by Missouri Williams. I was pleased that it wasn’t about actual animal experimentation, but it is a campus novel, of an extremely strange kind. The protagonist (we don’t learn her name until about half way through the book) is a young woman working for one of the professors at the university. It feels a bit like one of Italo Calvino’s imaginary cities, but here the vegetation is always threatening to take over, and is only held back by The Gardeners, who are an idiosyncratic lot. There are individual scenes in this book that really gave me pause, images that are striking and moving, but I’m not sure that it all adds up to a coherent whole. I admired it, but I’m not sure I was involved with it. Like the protagonist, I felt as if I was watching from the outside, and maybe that’s the point.

I’ve been interested to see that way that science fiction has been becoming more mainstream  over the past couple of decades, following Margaret Atwood’s cry that she didn’t write science fiction, even though she clearly did. ‘The End of Everything’ was my first M.John Harrison, and what a strange, dystopian novel it is. The world has been invaded by aliens known as the I-Ghetti, and they seem to play with everyone’s memories and sense of reality in a way that seems strangely familiar, what with all the gas-lighting and misinformation that’s currently flying around. The coastal towns of Kent and Essex, where much of the action is set, feel both familiar and utterly strange. And then there are the ‘artefacts’, who in some ways seem more human than us. Very disquieting and thought-provoking, with moments of violence described in such a deadpan way that I had to go back and check that what I thought I’d read had actually happened. The reader is wrong-footed and confused, but so are the characters in the book.

Now, I am really enjoying ‘John of John’ by Douglas Stuart. Stuart won the Booker Prize in  2020 with ‘Shuggie Bain’, and  I suspect he could be on to another winner with this book. The story tells of the return of John-Calum Macleod, a down-on-his-luck art student returning to the island of Harris, where his father John is a fierce Presbyterian minister, and his granny Ella, a Glaswegian with plenty of opinions of her own,  lives with his father. The whole sense of island life, the weather, the landscape, is all beautifully evoked, but it’s the characters and the dialogue that really makes this book sing. The sense of both community, and the claustrophobia that comes from everyone knowing everything about you makes this tale feel like a pressure-cooker, just about to explode. What secrets will be exposed, and how will the story resolve?  Well, I won’t spoil it for you when I find out, but just to say that of the books I’ve read so far, this would be my highest recommendation.

Four books down, nine to go. And two not even published yet! You can see the whole longlist here. But do let me know what your recommendations are! I love a good book….

Well Readers, as I headed off towards Coldfall Wood for a late night spider walk (of which more later this week) I was interrupted by the sound of magpies. I’m used to seeing family groups around, but this was more of a magpie convention.

At one point I counted twelve magpies, all chattering away to one another, and clearly engaged by something in the gardens behind Durham Road.

Now, I’ve seen family groups of magpies gathering in the autumn before, and I’ve seen them trying to force wood pigeons or even pairs of crows to leave their nests, but this was the biggest gathering I’ve ever seen. Or maybe I’ve just not been paying enough attention.

A few thoughts occur to me. One is that there is less imperative to be territorial for birds once breeding is over for the year, and there might be a big advantage in banding together to look for food. A lot of food sources have diminished this year, what with the drought, and this could lead to larger groups of birds – many eyes are better than a few when it comes to spotting an opportunity.

Another theory is that birds spend the ‘off-season’ sizing up one another as potential mates for next year, in which case this gathering is the equivalent of the school discos that I used to go to, though with less crying in the cloakroom and snogging in dark corners.

Birds, especially corvids, will also often band together if there’s a predator around, particularly a bird of prey, a heron or an owl. In fact, locally one of the best ways of spotting a buzzard or a red kite is to watch for lots of crows heading noisily in one direction. This seemed much more like a social gathering, however, and my bet is that some lovely person on Durham Road had either deliberately or inadvertently popped out some food, which the birds had just spotted.

Whatever the reason, it seems that animals that live in large social groups are often more able to solve problems than animals of the same species that live in smaller groups – I imagine that having more complex situations to deal with helps to develop the part of the brain that needs to adapt to and take advantage of what’s going on. There’s some evidence that urban animals, particularly foxes, are also becoming more ‘intelligent’ because they have more challenges to deal with. I am a bit uncomfortable with the whole notion of ‘intelligence’ when applied to animals, because all too often it means that we value animals that seem to think like us more than animals that are more alien. Plus, how on earth do we judge? I remember that tortoises were thought not to be as intelligent as some other animals until the scientists realised that they needed wider mazes with less acute angles, at which point their performance drastically improved. Also, looking at the state of much of the world at the moment it would be difficult to argue that we’re an intelligent species, but there we go.

Harrumph! Rant over.

And over to you, Readers. Have you noticed anything unusual with your local fauna, and if so, what do you think is going on?

‘Creation of Light’ by Gustave Dore, Public Domain

Dear Readers, this is the third and last poem that I remember my Mother reciting for me when I was a child: she knew it as ‘On His Blindness’. There is some debate over whether the ‘talent’ that Milton is talking about is his poetic talent, or his ability to translate documents from foreign languages, which was his job at the Commonwealth Office (and would have been impossible to do without sight I imagine), but clearly blindness is a theme. And the last line has been used so many times, in so many contexts, that it’s almost a shock to find it here. See what you think.

Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent

By John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps) Photo By Peter Schoen – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23826246

Dear Readers, there has been a lot of bad and depressing news around lately, so it felt well past time to have a good news story. And here it is! One of the big problems in the Amazon basin is that roads have been built through rainforest habitats. This fragmentation can bring its own problems: seeds that are dispersed by animals, such as many nuts and seeds, don’t travel from one side of the road to the other, and animals that can’t fly are trapped in their forest ‘silos’ and can’t interbreed. But one of the most visible and distressing effects of the roads is that many animals are killed while crossing: nearly nine million mammals are killed every year in Brazil.

Enter the charity Project Reconecta. Their founder, Brazilian biologist Fernanda Alba, has been pioneering the use of low-cost, easy-to-maintain road bridges in the forest canopy. Each bridge has a camera at each end, so that the animals using the bridges can be monitored.

Eight bridges were put in place in Alta Foresta, a small town in the Mato Grosso in Brazil, in 2024. In the eighteen months following their implementation, over 15,000 crossings were recorded, and not a single road kill.

Some species take to them straight away:

Black-faced Black Spider Monkey (Ateles chamek) Photo from https://wildexpedition.com/animals/black-faced-black-spider-monkey/ )

Purus Red Howler Monkey (Alouatta puruensis) Photo By D. Gordon E. Robertson – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17566490

Schneider’s Marmoset (Photo By Diego Silva – Costa-Araújo, R., Silva-Jr., J.S., Boubli, J.P. et al. An integrative analysis uncovers a new, pseudo-cryptic species of Amazonian marmoset (Primates: Callitrichidae: Mico) from the arc of deforestation. Sci Rep 11, 15665 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93943-w, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108190797)

Alta Foresta Titi Monkey (Plectourocebus grovesii) Photo By Reuber Brandão – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/466559914, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=194054982

The Alta Foresta Titi monkey in the last photo was only discovered by Western science in 2019, and is critically endangered, so it was a real joy to see them using the bridges.

Back  in 2021, Project Reconecta put 21 bridges into the area between the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Roriama, with the help of the indigenous Waimiri-Atroari people, who advised on the best places to put the bridges. This enabled the project team to note which animals used which bridges: the best used were the longest ones, possibly because the primates could jump across any shorter junctions. Some animals took a long time to feel happy about using the bridges: the Tufted Capuchins (Sapajus apella) took up to seven months before they felt confident about crossing, showing that the benefit of the bridges may reveal itself gradually over time.

Tufted Capuchin (Photo By Basile Morin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74555820)

It wasn’t just primates who used the bridges either: sloths, opossums and mouse opossums have also been seen using them.

Project Reconecta has big plans, and has received a number of awards for its innovative bridge designs: these are now the recommended standard for highway crossings, and Alba is working on projects in the Pantanal (where the ‘highway of death, the BR-262, kills 2,000 animals a year) and Suriname, as well as other regions in the Brazilian Amazon. The success of these projects is largely down to the involvement of everyone locally: as Alba says:

“When everyone is involved, everyone values the initiative and works harder to make it succeed.”

Let’s hope that this initiative continues to help bring animal communities together, and reduces the number of deaths of animals on the road.

Dear Readers, on Saturday we went on a Bat Walk in Coldfall Wood, with Cindy Blaney, bat expert and ecologist. As Friends of Coldfall Wood, we’ve been organising this walk every year for about a decade. We usually run two events, one for families with small children, and one for adults and older children, and they are always well-attended – there’s something about walking around the woods at night that gives one a whole new perspective, and it’s always good to see the bats. Coldfall is home to Pipistrelles and some Noctule bats. We normally see them above the wet woodland, where they flitter around catching mosquitoes, and even if we don’t see them, we can hear them using the Bat Detectors that Cindy provides.

Common noctule (Nyctalus noctula ) Photo By Mnolf – Photo taken in Rum, Austria, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=872955

Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) Photo By Drahkrub – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8802172)

At this point, I should say that we have never not seen bats in the wood. As we wander around, trying to avoid tripping over logs or falling into ditches, we start to hear the distinctive clicks of the Pipistrelles on our bat detectors. If we’re very lucky, we might even hear the deeper, slower sounds of a Noctule on the playing fields behind the wood.

This short film shows a bat detector picking up the calls of a Pipistrelle…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swFxJOcV5h0

…and this is a Noctule feeding over water.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1413233189327497

Now, we did pick up some Pipistrelles, but we didn’t see a single bat, and as it got darker even those  bat sounds disappeared. Cindy speculated that because it has been so hot and dry, there are fewer insects in the wood – many places in the wet woodland are pretty much dry. When the bats emerge in the evening, therefore, they head out as quickly as possible to see if they can find food over more guaranteed sources of food, where there is still water – some bats can travel as far as 25 kilometres in an evening. I’d be interested to know if there’s been more success in places such as Alexandra Palace, where there’s a lake, or some of the other local water sources.

It was a disappointment not to see the bats, but it does remind me that when you spot a wild animal, it’s a privilege, not a right. And I’m off to see if I can find some bat boxes for the garden. There’s a small water source here, so it should provide at least some food. It feels as if our wildlife has never needed us more.

So, Readers, how are the bats doing where you are?

Bonnie or Clyde, a Kune Kune pig

Dear Readers, we are very lucky to have a wide range of City Farms here in London – you might remember that I had my retirement party at Mudchute City Farm over in Docklands, and had a very fine Away Day in Spitalfields City Farm back in 2022. On Friday,  I visited Vauxhall City Farm with my friend P and her lovely son, who is eight months old, but is already fascinated by animals, and wasn’t the slightest bit scared of the goats and pigs. I won’t be posting any photos of him, but take it from me that he is the best baby in the world :-).

The entrance to the Farm (Photo By VauxhallCityFarm – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71660625)

In my twenties I worked on a City Farm in Dundee (long since gone), but I’ve always been a fan of the movement. It teaches children (and adults) about the link between animals and the food that we eat, and can provide a whole range of other opportunities. Some farms, such as the one at Spitalfields, are helping to restore breeds of farm animal that have come perilously close to extinction, while others have community gardens and sell eggs, fresh vegetables and fruit and even wool.

Vauxhall City Farm is lucky in having some large paddocks for the goats and alpacas, and everyone is very well looked-after. There is a group of spinners who dye the wool from the alpacas and sheep using plants grown in the community garden. There’s also a very pleasant caff.

Next door is what remains of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which must have looked like a very decadent  version of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Garden in its heyday. It used to be full of restaurants, concert halls, stalls and music, but these days it’s basically a green area. However, if you visit do not miss the Tea House Theatre – it sells a wide variety of cakes, and I can recommend the rhubarb and custard Victoria sponge.

Here I am, not enjoying the cake one bit. The carrot cake also comes highly recommended.

Vauxhall has certainly changed a lot since I was last here, what with the arrival of the American Embassy and all sorts of new high-rises. However, some things stay the same, and I was delighted to see that the Royal Vauxhall Tavern is looking particularly splendid – this gay venue has featured luminaries such as Lily Savage and Hinge and Bracket, and was once visited by Princess Diana, dressed as a man and accompanied by Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett. Apparently they attracted much more attention than Princess Diana did! The venue is now Grade II listed, because of its importance to the gay community.

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern (Photo By Ewan Munro from London, UK – Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Vauxhall, SE11Uploaded by Oxyman, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22394484)

Anyhow, that’s two visits ‘south of the river’ in less than a week, and very nice they were too. Who knows what I’ll get up to next?

Australasian barnacle )Austrominius modestus) Public Domain)

Dear Readers, my Linnean Society newsletter this week featured an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences. There are currently some 1500 vessels stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, waiting for the current war with Iran to end. All of them will have been fitted with what are known as biofouling measures – these are special paint or structures that reduce the amount of algae, bacteria or other marine organisms that grow on the undersides of the ship. Coupled with the fact that ships are normally only in dock for a couple of days, this means that most biofouling is minimal. Which is just as well, as when the ships move on you don’t want them to spread their organisms to other ports. The barnacles in the photo above came originally from New Zealand, and spread to Western Europe while ships from the Antipodes were laid up waiting for escorts across the Atlantic.

The ships in the Strait of Hormuz have been stuck there for, in some cases, months. Biofouling measures start to break down when the ship doesn’t move, and organisms accumulate. Furthermore, there’s a problem in the Strait itself – rising temperatures have had a knock-on effect on salinity, which has decreased biodiversity and increased the number of a small number of extremely tough organisms who can survive a wide range of conditions. And then there’s the question of reproduction: the delightfully-named Cosmopolitan Barnacle (Amphibalanus improvisus) can produce up to 36 offspring per day when the temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius. The ships then form a perfect substrate for the baby barnacles to attach and continue to grow.

Cosmopolitan Barnacles (Photo By Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10732884)

It’s in the interests of the shipping companies to make sure that their ships aren’t covered in barnacles or algae – these organisms increase drag, making ships slower and less fuel-efficient. However, the scientists in the paper quoted (Tamburi et al, 2026) suspect (and I’m sure they’re right) that when the Strait opens, the last thing on the mind of the captains will be sorting out biosecurity – they will want to get their crews and their cargo to where they’re supposed to be. Sadly, they will not only be transporting barnacles and algae, but also the pathogens and parasites that use them. The final result could be the spreading of organisms all over the world, particularly to ports with similar conditions to those in the Strait, with Jeddah, Mumbai, Colombo, Singapore, Alexandria, Piraeus, Algeciras and even Rotterdam being vulnerable to these organisms setting up home. Not only will these cause problems for ships, but they will also damage the ecosystems to which they’re introduced, being so well adapted to warming waters that they could well out compete existing plants and animals.

The report suggests that there’s little that can be done in the Strait itself, but that destination ports could be put on high alert and have remedial measures ready when an infected ship arrives. Furthermore, even if the ships can’t worry about treating biofouling while stationery, estimating the amount and type of organisms involved could help destination ports to prepare.

While the economic and human costs of the US/Iran war are foremost in everybody’s mind, I hadn’t thought of this particular aspect of the (many) ecological impacts that it will have. With shipping routes increasingly becoming targets for military action, and with ships and crews being ‘stuck’ more and more often, it would seem sensible to have plans and measures in place. Let’s see if it happens. Otherwise, as the report describes, we could be about to witness a ‘global bioinvasion super-spreader event;.

The report can be read here (and very interesting it is too!)

From ‘A Year in Normandie’ by David Hockney, at Serpentine North

Dear Readers, I was saddened by the death of David Hockney earlier this year: I really fell in love with him when he had his exhibition of i-Pad paintings at the Royal Academy a few years ago, when I was delighted by his use of colour (pretty much a constant throughout his long and varied career), and by his use of new technology. So I wasn’t going to miss his swan song at the Serpentine. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, this work forms a frieze around the gallery at Serpentine North of more than 100 i-Pad paintings, made in 2019 when the artist moved back to Normandy, but was waiting for his house to be renovated. The ‘paintings’ were made in the open air, and record a year in nature, moving through the seasons, with humans only represented by their artifacts: a tree house, a chair, a rather fine house. By the time the images were finished, the world was in lockdown, and there’s something of that quiet, introspective time in the work. 

To add to the pleasure, I was visiting with my friend J, who I met via the blog! Never let it be said that the internet is just a tool for division, it’s a tool for connection too.

On the way to the gallery, I’d passed some very fine trees, including this extraordinary Sweet Chestnut, which was positively bowed down with nuts.

And on the way back, I noticed this unusual lime tree, which had leaves rather like those of a whitebeam. Turns out it’s a Silver Lime (Tilia tomentosa). This is a species from southern Europe, and the one in Kensington Gardens really is a spectacular specimen.

There was also some interesting ‘dry’ planting: in amongst the usual suspects (Echinops, aloes, yuccas etc) was this very pretty lilac-blue plant. It’s known as Native Hibiscus (Alyogyne hakeifolia) and it’s a relative of the Mallows, rather than an actual hibiscus, though the plants are part of the same family. It was doing really well, so. definite possibility for a very hot, dry spot.

Native hibiscus (Alyogyne hakeifolia)

There’s no disguising how brown everything is, though the view up to Kensington Palace is still wonderful.

Then we walked the short distance from the Serpentine North gallery to Serpentine South, via the Serpentine Pavilion, designed this year by the Mexico-based LANZA atelier – the shape is ‘serpentine’, and there is excellent coffee to be had inside.

We also popped in to see the exhibition at Serpentine South, which was based around the work of Cecily Brown, a UK artist who has lived in New York for thirty years, and has recently returned. Her work is heavily influenced by the Serpentine and Kensington Gardens, and many of the more recent paintings have been created for this, her first solo exhibition in this country. I really liked her work – as you know, I’m a big fan of bright colour, but these paintings seemed to reveal themselves gradually as you spent time with them.

Anyhow, this was a really lovely day, filled with art and nature and combinations of the two. Furthermore, both exhibitions are free: we booked in advance, but you can just walk up for either of them, though you might have to queue at busy times. All the details are here.

We ate at the ‘Friends of Ours’ restaurant at Serpentine North – I’d recommend booking for lunch, but you could probably walk in without having to wait too long if you avoided the busy time between noon and 2 p.m. Very nice veggie options and Hackney Gelato ice cream.

All details are here. I’m a lifelong Londoner, but this was my first visit, It won’t be my last!

‘The Lady of Shalott’ By John William Waterhouse – Google Arts & Culture — RQHFwa4u2LTw0g Tate Images (http://www.tate-images.com/results.asp?image=N01543&wwwflag=3&imagepos=2) – Colour edit by uploader (+0.6 exposure, -5 contrast, -5 white balance), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34325115

Dear Readers, a few weeks ago I published a poem that my Mum used to recite when I was about eight years old and couldn’t sleep, so here is another one. Looking at it now, I can’t believe that Mum  managed to learn the whole thing, but I do remember her loving the moment when the mirror ‘crack’d from side to side’ and how she’d usually stand up to utter the words ‘the curse  is come upon me! cried the Lady of Shalott’. All very dramatic. My Mum definitely should have been on the stage, she’d have been a magnificent Lady Macbeth. Anyhow, Readers, here is the whole thing, and quite a tale it is. Don’t say I’m not good to you 🙂

The Lady of Shalott (1842)

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Part I
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
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray 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.”

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 seër 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.”