Poems (Hooper)/Ophelia
OPHELIA.AFTER THE PLAY.
She sits within her palace chamber lone, With tear-dimmed eyes and heavy-drooping head.The wasting torches in the night blast flare, The dying embers burn with lurid red,The wind-swept arras waves upon the wall,Without, the world lies 'neath a snowy pall, And the cold moon shines on the frozen stream.Her sad gaze seeks the snow-crowned battlements, But sees no light from spectral armor gleam;Not unto her pure sightIs giv'n that awful vision of the night.
Her rosary has fallen from her hand And lies a heap of pearls upon the floor;She sees as in a dream Prince Hamlet stand Before her, and her pale lips murmur o'erThose blighting words, "I never loved you. Go!Get thee into a nunnery." She whispers low,"Alas! yet I believedHe loved me once. I was the more deceived."
But, lo! strange sounds burst on the silent night. With sudden cries the startled echoes ringThe clang of steel upon a stony wall,A shriek, a heavy fall, A frenzied cry of "Is't the king?"Then all is silence, and the solemn moonShines on, nor veils her light.But pale Ophelia, in vague affright,Creeps startled to her couch, nor ends her prayers;And kindly slumber kisses off her tears,And for a season ends her woes and cares.
Sleep on! for thou shalt never know "A slumber sweet as this again;For thou shalt wake to-morrow morn To weep Polonius slain.Thy father dead, thy lover mad, What hope is left thee on the earth?Lo! thou shalt never smile again Till Madness lend thee fearful mirth.Thou gentle child! thus doomed to know A woman's loving and despair, Alas! that others' sin should work The woe of one so pure and fair.A tender violet that blooms Where Alpine avalanches sweep,A pearly shell on rocky shore When tempests smite the frenzied deep,The fledgling of a Tropic nest When wild tornadoes desolate:Such are the symbols of thy doom, And such the emblems of thy fate.Sleep on! nor dream of that cold wave Whose kiss shall soothe thy frenzied brain;Dream not of princely Hamlet's doom, Nor of thy loved Laertes slain.Sleep on, till morning flush with red The cold gray of the eastern sky,Then wake—to weep above thy dead— To madden—and to die!