Welcome to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, July 23, 2004.

Today's poem is part three of Alfred Lord Tennyson's Lady of Shalot. In parts one and two, we meet

the lady who lives alone in a tower near Camelot, and she spends her days

weaving in the tower and looking not at the real world, but at shadowy representations of the real

world. Fans of Plato and Socrates may recognize some common themes there.

And at the end of Part 2, she is finally exasperated with this life, with this existence,

separated from the actual experience of real life as she watches the young and the old,

the living and the dying, parading past her tower on their way to and from Camelot, which seems to be a happening place.

And she has no loyal knight of her own, and she says, I'm half sick of shadows.

Something's got to give, and I imagine it's coming in part three.

So, without further ado, here is part three of the Lady of Shalot.

A bow shot from her bower eaves he rode between the barley sheaves. The sun came dazzling through the leaves

and flamed upon the brazen grieves of bold Sir Lancelot. A Red Cross knight forever kneeled to a lady

in his shield that sparkled on the yellow field beside remote shallot.

The jemmy bridle glittered free, like to some branch of stars we see,

hung in the golden galaxy. The bridle bells ring merrily as he rode down to Camelot.

And from his blazoned Baldrick slung a mighty silver bugle hung,

and as he rode his armor rung beside remote shallot.

All in the blue, unclouded weather, thick jeweled shone the saddle leather, the helmet and the helmet feather burned 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 shallot. His broad, clear brow in sunlight glowed, on burnished hooves his war-horse trod, from underneath his helmet flowed 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,

...