Why the Lady of Shalott was Cursed

By Alice Bowen

(Age 10, 1996)

Two blue eyes and two red lips,
Hair as dark as the sun's eclipse,
Skin as soft as rose petal tips
Eyes that will ne'er drop or dip
Has the Lady of Shalott.
On her white mare she often rides,
And in her eyes you see her pride,
But there is envy deep inside
Jealous Melanalot.

Gold and riches rare had she
A castle with a gilded key
But her envy ruined her fair beauty
And Shalott's lady should now flee
The hatred of Melanalot.
Her anger she began to nurse
Her jealousy grows worse and worse
Melanalot now planned to curse
The lady of Shalott.

Some evil magic she has bought
At three o'clock she leaves the court
The battle of beauty will be fought
A cruel lesson will be taught
To the lady of Shalott.
The evil magic is now needed
No hatred could be so exceeded
A prick of conscience is not heeded
By bad Melanalot.

Melanalot's boat darts o'er the river
To the lady's island without a quiver
"I will be the curse's giver!
She will never look down hither!"
Laughed mad Melanalot.
From the boat she quickly seized
An arrow onto which she squeezed
A drop of poisoned curse diseased
For the lady of Shalott.

The arrow glowed a yellow green
Brighter than any light she'd seen
At the lady's casement she aimed so keen
To curse the lady and vent her spleen
On the fairest in Camelot.
The lady looked down and saw the mean
Arrow that came from the silver stream
For the last time she saw the lily gleam
And a scream echoed round Shalott!

In the light of the crystal moon
The cursed arrow crossed the room
And in the light there lay a loom
Was the curse to be her doom?
The curse of Melanalot?
As daylight dawned upon her face
She turned away with all her grace
Was she doomed to making lace?
The lady of Shalott?

In the School Report, prepared by pupils from Rupert House School.
Page 12, Henley Standard newspaper, 14^th June 1996.

Inspired by the poem The Lady of Shalott, written in 1832 (reworked in 1842) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), the Victorian Poet Laureate, who was married on 13^th June 1850, 146 years and 1 day ago, in the church at the village of Shiplake, just up the River Thames from Henley-on-Thames.

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), the Victorian Pre-Raphaelite artist, painted The Lady of Shalott towards the end of his life between 1886 and 1905. During the latter part of this period, he lived at The Acre in the village of Sonning, Berkshire, on the River Thames between Reading and Henley, where the author of the poem above also lives.