Silent Into Camelot

The legend of Camelot is one of the most enduring of all legends.

It has given the world visions of knights in bright armour, ladies fair, feats of chivalry, and wondrous dreams of adventure.

Yet there remains an image that does not receive the attention it deserves amidst this canon of Chivalry: a small timber boat slipping downriver beneath tower and balcony, bearing a maiden robed in white towards the gates of Camelot and whatever waits beyond.

Tennyson’s, Lady of Shalott, is like a silent messenger; one who fits wonderfully on our Timeline here, and who passes across it in the most beautiful of ways, yet as a haunting and unsettling vision.

She speaks of lost chances, dreams unfulfilled, and yearnings that break hearts and souls.

Her brief, ghostlike passage beneath those walls deserves to be remembered here, among the other shadows and fragments of this Commonplace - this art of Meminisse.

The Lady of Shalott, borne silently toward Camelot, where hope arrives only after it is lost. AI generated image.

‘“Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

A corse between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round 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 Launcelot mused a little space;

he said, ‘She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott.’”

~ Lord Tennyson.