Poems (Stoddard)/Before the Mirror

by Elizabeth Stoddard

BEFORE THE MIRROR.

NOW like the Lady of Shalott, I dwell within an empty room,And through the day and through the night I sit before an ancient loom.

And like the Lady of Shalott I look into a mirror wide,Where shadows come, and shadows go, And ply my shuttle as they glide.

Not as she wove the yellow wool, Ulysses' wife, Penelope;By day a queen among her maids, But in the night a woman, she,

Who, creeping from her lonely couch, Unraveled all the slender woof;Or, with a torch, she climbed the towers, To fire the fagots on the roof!

But weaving with a steady hand The shadows, whether false or true,I put aside a doubt which asks "Among these phantoms what are you?"

For not with altar, tomb, or urn, Or long-haired Greek with hollow shield,Or dark-prowed ship with banks of oars, Or banquet in the tented field;

Or Norman knight in armor clad, Waiting a foe where four roads meet;Or hawk and hound in bosky dell, Where dame and page in secret greet;

Or rose and lily, bud and flower, My web is broidered. Nothing brightIs woven here: the shadows grow Still darker in the mirror's light!

And as my web grows darker too, Accursed seems this empty room;For still I must forever weave These phantoms by this ancient loom.