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 bright
Is 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.