Sweet Ophelia

[Dark Muse]

Sweet Ophelia

She was our sweet Ophelia
with far away eyes
and frostbit lips,

Roses woven in her hair,
with thorns pressed
into her skull,
blood red rouge
upon her cold cheeks.

Virgin the body
untouched by human hands
for she was born
only for one lover
by the name of Death.

He called to her
from afar, through the
still air of the night,
made aware of every
stirring.

And alone she weeps,
while from the shadows
comes her comforter
to whisper sweet nothings
against her ear.

Now the bride
in pearl white
chaste and pure
like a dream afloat
upon oblivion's tide.

And as maidens gather
upon the shore
to sing a nightingale's tune,
and cast her by chance
to the water, in reflections glance
she may see, our sweet Ophelia,
heavenly, suspended in eternity.

Beauty that never fades
with obsidian eyes
of everlasting night.

[Bar22do]

So dramatically romantic! with your usual night silvers and darks that make us recognize the haunting atmosphere you always create...

[Dark Muse]

Thank you very much!

[hillwalker]

Very romantic in a gothic way - one is put in mind of a tragic heroine from Arthurian legend wasting away on the shores of a lake.

I'm not convinced Virgin the body / untouched by human hands works particularly well but otherwise another great addition to your collection.

H

[Dark Muse]

Thank you!

[weltanschauung]

made me think of poe's
(...)
"they loved her for her wealth-
and they hated her for her pride-
but she grew in feeble health,
and they love her - that she died."
(..)

[blank|verse]

This is nicely evocative of Millais's famous painting... but perhaps shares a similar sugar-coated interpretation of Ophelia and exactly what she got up to with Hamlet, and perhaps others, away from Polonius's prying eyes. Therefore...

Virgin the body
untouched by human hands
for she was born
only for one lover
...is highly debatable. The most compelling piece of evidence from the play being that she dies. Would Shakespeare really bump off a virgin for no good reason?

The young British poet Anna Katchinska has written a similar poem about Ophelia called 'The baker's daughter' (a reference to an suggestive proverb about owls mentioned by Ophelia in her madness), which ends:

My eyes itch like yeast. She says they hate
our flowers and songs, our stupid owlish faces,
and her mud slurps my violets, I sink my knees down
into her fishes and bubbles and claws.
'No girl can ever die honest,' she toots,
tugging me in with her beak.
'No girl can ever die honest', indeed.

[Dark Muse]

This is nicely evocative of Millais's famous painting... but perhaps shares a similar sugar-coated interpretation of Ophelia and exactly what she got up to with Hamlet, and perhaps others, away from Polonius's prying eyes. Therefore...

...is highly debatable. The most compelling piece of evidence from the play being that she dies. Would Shakespeare really bump off a virgin for no good reason?

The young British poet Anna Katchinska has written a similar poem about Ophelia called 'The baker's daughter' (a reference to an suggestive proverb about owls mentioned by Ophelia in her madness), which ends:

My eyes itch like yeast. She says they hate
our flowers and songs, our stupid owlish faces,
and her mud slurps my violets, I sink my knees down
into her fishes and bubbles and claws.
'No girl can ever die honest,' she toots,
tugging me in with her beak.
'No girl can ever die honest', indeed.

I just want to clarify that this poem is not literally about they actual Ophelia from Hamlet. I draw from that illusion by using the name, but the poem is about someone who is seen as being like an Ophelia becasue of the simillar cirucumstances of the death.