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OPHELIA IN HAMLET.

Adown the soft meadow, the green growing meadow,
There floweth a river its brown banks between;
Where the willows bend over in love with their shadow
And the ripples laugh lightly in dimpling sheen.

 

There the brown bee doth hover the red lilies over,
And softly doth settle at last in their deeps;
Above the broad daisies the butterfly rover
Hesitates, dallies and swings and sleeps.

 

There the sparrow's nest softly the south winds discover,
And that wonderful sky is the sky of June;
The myrtle with blue is blossoming over,
And life and the world are all in tune.

 

Oh, the dimpling and smiling of that flowing river,
And oh, the green meadow so warm in the sun!
The reeds, the lush grasses with joyance a-quiver,
And oh, the sweet idyl one summer begun!

 

Now why, and for what, the brown river still floweth,
And what though the sky be of March or of June,
And why or for what the south wind she bloweth,
When life and the world are all out of tune.

 

God knoweth: since love fled the mead and the river,
Since two walk nevermore side by side;
Since the sedge is brown, and the alders shiver,
And hearts are sundered so wide, so wide!