Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘Overlook a space of flowers,’ – The ‘sealed garden’ ( hortus conclusus ) is an image of virginity, found in the Song of Songs and employed in the cultus of the Virgin Mary.

‘And the silent isle imbowers’ – ‘imbowers’ is a key word. It means ‘to enclose, surround,’ though ‘a bower’ is a resting or sleeping place too.

‘By the margin, willow-veil’d,’ – ‘margin’ = shoreline.

‘…and unhail’d/The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d’ – May be glossed as ‘the small sailing-craft moves irregularly.’ It is ‘unhail’d’ as the Lady is unable to communicate with anyone outside her castle.

‘Only reapers, reaping early,/In among the bearded barley’ – An image of harvesting what is now ripe. Male maturity is implied by ‘bearded,’ which also describes the fully grown crop.

‘Hear a song that echoes cheerly’ – This implies that the Lady is happy with her lot at this stage of the poem.

‘And by the moon the reaper weary…/Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy/Lady of Shalott."’ – Isolated from all others, the Lady begins to lose her humanity. She is becoming a ‘sprite,’ a local legend, not a person with a life and feelings.

PART II

‘There she weaves by night and day/A magic web with colours gay.’ – This is, no doubt, symbolic of the artist’s creative powers.

‘She has heard a whisper say,/A curse is on her if she stay/To look down to Camelot.’ – It is interesting that the curse is just a ‘whisper’ or rumour to the Lady. The sense that her whole life and future depends upon something so uncertain gives the reader a sense of her insecurity. This may represent the idea that an artist must be divorced from the world to be able to create.