The mirror crack’d from side to side

[leathellin]

[1]
Once upon a time I was a child in an English lesson and the teacher handed out postcards with paintings on. We all had to write a poem based on our painting. The postcard I got was of this painting:

Comments

[venta]

I do like the poem, but I think perhaps I met it at the wrong age - the story of the Lady of Shalott doesn't stand up very well to the relentless "but why?"-ing of a small child :)

There's something indefinably drippy about all Waterhouse's paintings that makes me want to bite.

[undyingking]

I don't think it stands up very well to the intermittent but-whying of a medium-sized adult, either.

(In Tennyson's version of the story, that is. The Morte d'Arthur version, in which eg. her followers put her adrift in the boat after she's died, makes a lot more sense.)

[a_llusive]

I've always loved the painting but also knew it before the poem. The huge framed version which quetzyl lent Templars when I was there is in our house waiting for the right place.

The story of the poem has always disturbed me, but then the endless (and endlessly) tortured Arthurian damsels are a bit disturbing.