An excerpt from Canto IV of The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson

“As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: From the right
A shape came slowly with a ruddy light;
A woman with a red lamp in her hand,
Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand;                  
O desolation moving with such grace!
O anguish with such beauty in thy face!
  I fell as on my bier,
  Hope travailed with such fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,                 
As I came through the desert: I was twain,
Two selves distinct that cannot join again;
One stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark in swoon and her;
And she came on, and never turned aside,                
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
  And as she came more near
  My soul grew mad with fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Hell is mild          
And piteous matched with that accursed wild;
A large black sign was on her breast that bowed,
A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud;
That lamp she held was her own burning heart,
Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart:          
  The mystery was clear;
  Mad rage had swallowed fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: By the sea
She knelt and bent above that senseless me;            
Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there,
She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair;
She murmured words of pity, love, and woe,
Shee heeded not the level rushing flow:
  And mad with rage and fear,                           
  I stood stonebound so near.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: When the tide
Swept up to her there kneeling by my side,
She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne    
Away, and this vile me was left forlorn;
I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart,
Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart:
  They love; their doom is drear,
  Yet they nor hope nor fear;                               
  But I, what do I here?”

The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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.”