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The lady of shalott

Every time I hear "The Lady of Shalott" by Loreena McKennitt, I am there. I see the sheaves of barley, the people stirring sleepily as the villages come to life, the river running through Camelot. I see the Lady, I note her pierce of wonder when she first glimpses Lancelot parting through the field of barley on his horse. The whole drama runs its course again and again, and it's as though she is locked into this fate. The story can happen no other way.

I don't really know what I mean to say. Only that this poem has a magic I have never found in a poem before, a story that truly comes to life each time I hear it.

I watched Sense and Sensibility the night before last, and it struck me for the first time how poems were read for entertainment. Marianne, or anyone of her tastes, would recite beloved poems fanatically, seeming to fall in love with them as we do with songs today. Yet for poetry to be in vogue, those high emotions accessible to the public and willingly imbibed, seems incredible to me. I truly feel that an informed era has been long past.

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