THE LADY OF SHALOTT SPEAKS TO ME!

The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is a poem based on the Arthurian legend of a noble lady imprisoned in a tower where even the brave knight Lancelot cannot save her.  

You may read the entire poem here: 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45359/the-lady-of-shalott-1832

So imprisoned, the Lady of Shalott spent her days weaving tapestries, inspired by what she could see using a mirror from her small tower window, prompting these lines: 

But in her web she still delights 

To weave the mirror's magic sights, 

For often thro' the silent nights 

A funeral, with plumes and lights 

       And music, came from Camelot: 

Or when the moon was overhead 

Came two young lovers lately wed; 

'I am half sick of shadows,' said 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

As I lie here, mostly confined to my house, in part by  the current COVID-19 epidemic, but mainly by the disabling pain from my Prolia-associated fractures, my primary link with the outside world is television. 

And what is TV but shadows?  

I too am half sick of shadows!

Read more about the Lady of Shalott here: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott

     

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DEALING WITH SOLITUDE -- W. H. AUDEN SAYS IT ALL!

I manage.  That's about it!  Between the COVID-19 epidemic and the vertebral fractures I don't go out, I don't see people, meet friends, etc.  E-mail helps.  Phone calls are nice too but sometimes exhausting and sometimes at bad times.  

I am so in mind of Auden's poem, Night Mail.   

I've posted about it elsewhere as well: 

http://joansgoodstuff.blogspot.com/2022/01/night-mail-by-whauden.html

Especially these lines: 

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
But shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

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