Ophelia

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2 id="id00174" style="margin-top: 4em">OPHELIA</h2> <p id="id00175" style="margin-top: 2em">There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves<br/> Espalier, in a fading summer air,<br/> And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower,<br/> Whom wind, and snowflakes, and the sudden rain<br/> Of love's wild skies have purified to heaven.<br/> There is a beauty past all weeping now<br/> In that sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile;<br/> Only a lonely grey in those mad eyes,<br/> Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness.<br/> And when amid startled birds she sings lament,<br/> Mocking in hope the long voice of the stream,<br/> It seems her heart's lute hath a broken string.<br/> Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings;<br/> And rosemary, that sees remembrance fade;<br/> And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams;<br/> But ah! if utterable, would this earth<br/> Remain the base, unreal thing it is?<br/> Better be out of sight of peering eyes;<br/> Out—out of hearing of all-useless words,<br/> Spoken of tedious tongues in heedless ears.<br/> And lest, at last, the world should learn heart-secrets;<br/> Lest that sweet wolf from some dim thicket steal;<br/> Better the glassy horror of the stream.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />