In the stormy east-wind straining

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in its banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round and round 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.

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.

Excerpt from Lord Alfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" (1833). The painting (also called "The Lady of Shalott") is by John William Waterhouse (1888).