Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HAMLET, by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY


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HAMLET, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Horatio took me to the cliff
Last Line: "hamlet, hamlet, will never lose his crown."
Alternate Author Name(s): Lindsay, Vachel
Subject(s): Actors & Actresses; Shakespeare - Hamlet; Actresses


(Remembering how Walker Whiteside played Hamlet in Springfield so often
in Chatterton's Old Opera House, thirty years ago)

HORATIO took me to the cliff
Upon the edge of things
And said: "Behold a cataract
Of the thrones of old dream kings."
And I saw the thrones falling
From the high stars to the deep:
Red thrones, green thrones,
To everlasting sleep.
I saw thrones falling
From the zenith to the pit:
Crowns of man's mighty moods
And whims of little wit.
And all the birds of Elsinore
Flew round Horatio's head
And crying, said:
"Though all the crowns go down,
Hamlet, Hamlet, will never lose his crown."

Oh monarchs muddled, stabbed and lost,
Who have no more to say:
Gone with Cæsar, with the Czar,
And the Kaiser on his way!
But now I see a student prince
More real than all such kings,
Hamlet, home from Wittenberg,
And every bird sings:
"Though all the crowns go down,
Hamlet, Hamlet, will never lose his crown."

Some of the dreams we saw dethroned
Were merely hopes of mine:
One that a child might love me,
And give one leaf for a sign;
One dream I had in babyhood
That my rag-doll was alive;
One that I had in boyhood
That a sparrow, caged, would thrive.
One that I had for years and years
That my church held no disgrace.
One that I had but yesterday:
Faith in Wisdom's face.

Oh royal crowns, falling fast
From the days of boy's delight,
The frost-bright time when first I made
A giant snow-man white.
And the time of my first Christmas tree,
My first Thanksgiving Day,
My first loud Independence dawn
When the cannon blazed away. ...
Of high fantastic hours
That died like dog and clown,
Into the awful pit
We saw their crowns go down,
But Hamlet, Hamlet, will never lose his crown.

As sages walk with sages
On the proud Socratic way,
Hamlet struts with players
Till the world's last day.
With seeming shameless strollers
He swaggers his black cloak
With a prince's glittering eye
He spoils the townsmen's joke.
And I watch him and attend him
He compels them to give room,
And makes Fifth Street our battlement
Against the shades of doom.
With poetry, authority,
With every known pride
Hamlet stands with drawn sword,
His Gypsies at his side.

And all the gardens of the town
Are but Ophelia's flowers,
And all the shades of Elsinore
Fly round our Springfield towers;
And Hamlet kneels by all the hearts
That truly bleed or bloom,
As saints do stations of the cross
To Christ's white tomb.
And all the birds keep singing
To my heart bowed down:
"Hamlet, Hamlet, will never lose his crown."





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