Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

PART I

‘On either side the river lie’ – It is possible to comment on the sound patterns of almost every line of this poem. Here ‘either side’ and ‘river lie’ form a pattern: the rhythm is identical, and ‘side’ and ‘lie’ assonate.

‘That clothe the wold and meet the sky;’ – ‘wold’ = open, hilly country. It may well be a Lincolnshire word.

‘To many-tower'd Camelot;’ – The traditional capital city of King Arthur. Tennyson immediately establishes the context of his tale.

‘Gazing where the lilies blow’ – ‘blow’ means to bloom. Lilies are images of purity (and the Lady is, obviously, a virgin), but they are also bound into the cycle of growth, and will blossom, seed and wither like all other plants.

‘The island of Shalott.’ – Shalott is a still presence in this poem, and Camelot is also a ‘fixed’ idea, as well as a location. Note the way that Tennyson isolates the two places from the to-ing and fro-ing of people described in the poem, by a verse form that flows at some pace, but then comes to a hiatus and closure with every ‘Camelot’ or ‘Shalott.’

‘Willows whiten, aspens quiver,’ – The underside of willow leaves are whiter in colour, so that when the wind blows the whole tree seems to whiten. Aspens, similar to willows, have their leaves at the end of long tendril-like branches, and do seem to quiver in the wind.

‘Little breezes dusk and shiver’ – That is, cause dark patches and rippling effects; ‘dusk’ is a noun used for a verb.

‘Through the wave that runs for ever’ – Symbolically suggestive, perhaps, of time and life going on outside the confines of Shalott.

‘Four grey walls, and four grey towers,’ – This gives quite an oppressive sense of the Lady’s confinement.