a flashback poem from a silent literary heroine (jb)

Note to those who don't know Hamlet: This is a creative writing assignment I did years ago that I just came across and really liked. It was to write a couple verses from the perspective of one of the characters in Hamlet (my favorite Shakespeare play) and possibly add some story that isn't a part of the play. I wrote a soliloquy from Ophelia's perspective.  
All you need to know about Ophelia: in the play, she was Laertes' sister and a possible wife of Hamlet. She tends to be an inconsequential character for the most part, which is why I chose to bring her out and tell her story. Hamlet, as we know, goes mad, as does Ophelia, and she dies by "accidentally" falling into the water and drowning. I imagined, therefore, that she did not die by accident but committed suicide because she was pregnant with Hamlet's child and could not tell him or anyone else because of his insanity and inability to act accoringly in her last few days. This in her final speech before going into the water. (The italicized lines are lines from various points in the actual play of Hamlet, used out of context of their place in the work but in aid to my poem so as to connect my work with the original text.)



The Last Soliloquy
(written: February 3, 2005)

My father lies below me in the soil
My brother’s out to seek his dear revenge
My lover is the one he seeks to kill
And I have found my own specific end.
Nature is fine in love, and where ‘tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves; as at my home
Where photos of you sit upon my shelf.
They wait for dust that soon will start to form
And find a place to spend eternity
As I will find an everlasting bed
Within this water momentarily.
But first a simple prayer I send above
In hopes the heavens let it reach your ears
So you might know the reason for my choice
This night that will erase my coming years.
You told me once that I was in your heart
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so,
And we fulfilled our romance while I did
As you requested and let no one know.
But I could not ignore when sick set in
And quickly pushed your love for me aside.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go,
And so I pulled your mother to the side.
I told her of a secret you don’t know
And she replied with quite the scorning speech.
I knew her lack of temperance was a sign
That for us, joy was only out of reach.
And so, after a day of questions asked
And answered in the quiet of my mind,
With all the options factored in an weighed --
This double suicide’s all I could find
To set this great insanity to rest
And let my soul take flight to better things.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
And one of which is ever lingering.
I pray you do forgive but beg you please:
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
While like some reckless libertine are you.
I feel the wind of death upon my back
And time has come for my composed surrender
Obtain my final words with tender, please,
Let truth be known and all my sins remembered.

(jb)