ELSINORE
It is strange in Elsinore
Since the day King Hamlet died.
All the hearty sports of yore,
Sledge and skate, are laid aside;
Stilled the ancient mirth that rang,
Boisterous, down the fire-lit halls;
They forgot, at Yule, to hang
Berried holly on the walls.
Claudius lets the mead still flow
For the blue-eyed thanes that love it;
But they bend their brows above it,
And forever, to and fro,
Round the board dull murmurs go:
“It is strange in Elsinore
Since the day King Hamlet died.”
And a swarm of courtiers flit,
New in slashed and satined trim,
With their freshly-fashioned wit
And their littleness of limb,—
Flit about the stairways wide,
Till the pale Prince Hamlet smiles,
As he walks, at twilight tide,
Through the galleries and the aisles.
For to him the castle seems—
This old castle, Elsinore—
Like a thing built up of dreams;
And the king’s a mask, no more;
And the courtiers seem but flights
Of the painted butterflies;
And the arras, wrought with fights,
Grows alive before his eyes.
Lo, its giant shapes of Danes,
As without a wind it waves,
Live more nobly than his thanes,
Sullen carpers, ale-fed slaves!
In the flickering of the fires,
Through his sleep at night there pass
Gay conceits and young desires—
Faces out of memory’s glass,
Fragments of the actor’s art,
Student’s pleasures, college broils,
Poesies that caught his heart,
Chances with the fencing foils;
Then he listens oftentimes
With his boyhood’s simple glee,
To dead Yorick’s quips and rhymes,
Leaning on his father’s knee.
To that mighty hand he clings,
Tender love that stern face charms;
All at once the casement rings
As with strength of angry arms.
From the couch he lifts his head,
With a shudder and a start;
All the fires are embers red,
And a weight is on his heart.
It is strange in Elsinore:
Sure some marvel cometh soon!
Underneath the icy moon
Footsteps pat the icy floor;
Voices haunt the midnights bleak,
When the wind goes singing keen;
And the hound, once kept so sleek,
Slinks and whimpers and grows lean;
And the shivering sentinels,
Timorous, on their lonesome round,
Starting count the swinging bells,
Starting at the hollow sound;
And the pine-trees chafe and roar,
Though the snow would keep them still.
In the state there’s somewhat ill;
It is strange in Elsinore.