On the calm black water
where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats
like a great lily;
Floats very slowly,
lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods
you can hear them sound the mort.
For more than a thousand years
sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom,
down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years
her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad
to the evening breeze.
The wind kisses her breasts
and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils
rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows
weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide,
dreaming brow.
The ruffled water-lilies
are sighing around her;
At times she rouses,
in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes
a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem
falls from the golden stars.
O pale Ophelia!
beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died,
carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from
the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices
of better freedom.
It was a breath of wind, that,
twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors
to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening
to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree
and the sighs of the nights;
It was the voice of mad seas,
the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart,
too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight,
a poor madman
Who one April morning
sate mute at your knees!
Heaven! Love! Freedom!
What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him
as snow does to a fire;
Your great visions
strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity
terrified your blue eye!
- And the poet says
that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night,
the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water,
lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great
lily.