Ophelia

Far more a garland than the garland-bier
That buoys her billowed hair,
Her skin more lily, lips more rose and myrrh
Than all a garden’s ware,
She floats on the black stream like a dead naiad,
By sodden folds revealed
Exquisitely as calm Praxiteles carved
A muse in linen veiled.
Pale effigy in cold ablution,
Sinking to colder dissolution.

There is no shepherd, hunter, Hamlet here
To hear her waning lauds;
Only reeds and fronds of willow proffer
Succour to failing hands.
The shepherd sleeps, the hunter winds his horn,
While Hamlet plots a plot;
Ophelia to her watery lot is borne
By lily roots to rot.
Love’s effigy in cold ablution,
Sinking to colder dissolution.