Elsinore

It is strange in ElsinoreSince 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 hangBerried holly on the walls.Claudius lets the mead still flowFor 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 ElsinoreSince the day King Hamlet died.”

And a swarm of courtiers flit,New in slashed and satined trim,With their freshly-fashioned witAnd 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 flightsOf 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 passGay 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 oftentimesWith 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 ringsAs 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 moonFootsteps 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.