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, | 5 |
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; | 10 |
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. | 15 |
|
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, | 20 |
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 | 25 |
Like a thing built up of dreams; | |
And the kings a mask, no more; | |
And the courtiers seem but flights | |
Of the painted butterflies; | |
And the arras, wrought with fights, | 30 |
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! | 35 |
|
In the flickering of the fires, | |
Through his sleep at night there pass | |
Gay conceits and young desires | |
Faces out of memorys glass, | |
Fragments of the actors art, | 40 |
Students pleasures, college broils, | |
Poesies that caught his heart, | |
Chances with the fencing foils; | |
Then he listens oftentimes | |
With his boyhoods simple glee, | 45 |
To dead Yoricks quips and rhymes, | |
Leaning on his fathers knee. | |
To that mighty hand he clings, | |
Tender love that stern face charms; | |
All at once the casement rings | 50 |
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. | 55 |
|
It is strange in Elsinore: | |
Sure some marvel cometh soon! | |
Underneath the icy moon | |
Footsteps pat the icy floor; | |
Voices haunt the midnights bleak, | 60 |
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, | 65 |
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 theres somewhat ill; | 70 |
It is strange in Elsinore. | |
|