Ophelia's Dream
Channel: The Unburnt Archive
Date: 2021-06-02

“There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
    
    There with fantastic garlands did she come
    Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
    That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
    But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
    
    There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
    Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
    When down her weedy trophies and herself
    Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
    And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
    
    Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
    As one incapable of her own distress,
    Or like a creature native and indued
    Unto that element; 
   
    But long it could not be
    Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
    Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay

    To muddy death.”


William Shakespeare