Not entirely serious Sapphic verses affectionately addressed to the Lady of Shallot.

(Note: Sapphic verse form, not amatory inclinations.)


Much as I love the poetry of Tennyson,
Melancholic, rich, and gloomily Victorian,
I never could make any sense at all of that lady
Banged up in her tower.


Too many questions pop up quite unwanted,
So many oddities, whys and hows, and what ifs
For one to share in her tragic isolation.
So, let us ask her:


"Beautiful, unlovered, nameless, and pre-Rapahelite,
Lady, pray tell us what you did to merit
That bizarre curse which barred you from a mere glance
Out of the window?


"Were you thus doomed, or was the curse ancestral
Handed down from parent to child as a prized heirloom
("Our Family curse") or did you speak too roughly
To some local Warlock?


"Oi, warty witch, or dirty trampish wizard,
Out of my way. You're causing public nuisance
Polluting the environment with your noisy incantations.
Your cat is mangy.


"Don't you know that cursing's a punishable hate-crime?
Eyes of toad and newts' tongues are cruelly abstracted?
Harm endangered species? You should be arrested.
Embrace deep ecology!"


Harranguing witches is a risky business.
But to get practical, pray tell us more about your
No doubt palatial, yet probably deficient
Living arrangements.

Have you a bathroom? Not to mention lavatory?
Do you eat, sleep, wash and cook? And has your tower
A canteen? And what's the web you're always weaving?
A carpet? A poncho?

Was Lancelot's "Tirra Lirra" really worth the bother
Of piloting a boat down to many-towered Camelot?
What did you expect to find there, a new home,
Mod. cons provided?

O beautiful, irrational, witless, agrophobic
Lady of Shallot, why not buy yourself some new clothes.
Employ a plumber, have a TV as your mirror,
Or sell that damned tower.

Get on to Facebook, Twitter, Google Blogger,
Publish your every thought, however fatuous,
Get a life! Meet interesting pixelated people.
Wise up, sweet Lady!


Come live with me and be my love. We'll find a
Warehouse penthouse flat in Wapping, very trendy,
Buy all our furniture at IKEA, have an
Enviable life-style.


You'd make a super new-age drippy hippy,
Shopping for tat in the Covent Garden market,
Trailing your skirts in the vomit and the dog mess,
Clubbing til the small hours.


Lovely, lonely Lady of Shallot, let us face it.
Towers, curses, poetry,  are just old hat. Think of
Beaches, bikinis, gravadlax, tequila.
Sushi, a red Porsche.