THE LADY OF SHALOT—BY ALFRED TENNYSON--P-10

She left the web, she left the loom, 
She made three paces through the room, 
She saw the water-lily bloom, 
She saw the helmet and the plume, 
She looked down to Camelot.

• When the Lady sees him, she makes a fateful choice. She steps away from her loom and walks across the room. For the first time she actually looks outside, and sees the real world, the lilies, the knight's helmet, and Camelot.
• The poem doesn't actually say that she's fallen hopelessly in love at the very sight of Lancelot, but that's pretty much the implication.

Out flew the web and floated wide; 
The mirror cracked from side to side; 
"The curse is come upon me," cried 
The Lady of Shalott.

• Of course we learned early in the poem that the Lady is forbidden by the mysterious curse from looking outside. So when she does, her web flies apart and the magic mirror cracks.
• The Lady realizes right away that she's in trouble, and the third part of the poem finishes with her crying out: "The curse is come upon me."

In the stormy east-wind straining, 
The pale yellow woods were waning, 
The broad stream in his banks complaining, 
Heavily the low sky raining 
Over towered Camelot;

• The weather lets us know that things are all messed up. There's a stormy wind, the leaves are yellow and fading ("waning"). Even the river "complains" and the sky is low and heavy with rain above Camelot. The outside world reflects the Lady's sad situation.

Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 
The Lady of Shalott.

• Now the Lady does what pretty much everyone does when they feel bad: she goes and finds a boat and writes her name on it. Actually we're not sure why she does this, but it does make her easier to identify later in the poem.