She greets the lily on the stalk; She shakes the soft hair from her brows; She wavers down the garden walk Beneath the bloomy boughs. She is the slenderest of maids; Her fair face strikes you like a star; The great stone tower her pathway shades-- The prison where the Princes are. _Across the dewy pleasance falls, All in the clear May morning light, The shadow of those evil walls That look so black by night._ She is so glad, so wild a thing, Her heart sings like the lark all day; The unhooded falcon on the wing Is not more freely gay. In sun and wind doth she rejoice, And blithely drinks the airy blue, Yet loves the solemn pines that voice The grief she never knew. In silence of the woods apart Her sure swift step the Dryads know; Full oft she speeds the bounding hart, And draws the bending bow. Fine gleams across her spirit dart, And never living soul, saith she, Could make her choose for aye to lose Her own sweet company. But sometimes, when the moon is bright, So bright it almost drowns the stars, She thinks how some have lost delight Behind the prison bars. It makes her sad a little space, And casts a shadow on her look, As branches in a woody place Do flicker on a brook. Last night she had a dream of men, Dark faces strange with keen desire; She heard the blaring trumpet then, She saw the shields strike fire. The pomp of plumes, the crack of spears, Beyond her happy circle lie: Thank Heaven! she has but eighteen years, And loves the daisies and the sky. _And yet across her garden falls, All in the clear May morning light, The shadow of the prison walls That look so black by night._ 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.