The wind bites shrewdly

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Hamlet Horatio poetry Shakespeare

the wind bites shrewdly
it is very cold
and ghosts have walked about on nights like this.
still not a word of you has passed my lips.
your father rose to tell you of his fate,
demanding vengeance
and a finished tale.
will he tell us what this show meant?
i will not, not until it draws you back!
draws thee back. please, sweet ghost, come back.
and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
i do!
to tell my story
no! – my lord?
Art there? Art here?
’tis gone
‘tis all i have of you – of thee – it’s all
i hold thy story hostage now, sweet prince
come haunt me, make me tell thy tale

how long will a man lie i’ the earth before he rot

treachery! seek it out –
the rest is
silence,
yes, so it is! i’ll keep it til thy ghost
rise like thy father’s, seek thy story’s telling –
doom’d for a certain term to walk the night
and for the day confined to fast in fires –
walk but one night with me, my lord, one more
horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
as e’er my conversation coped withal
one night, one last – for us, and for our tragedy,
here stooping to your clemency –
i’ll speak!
for “what my love is, proof hath made you know…”
yes…
art here, then? horatio, i am dead;
thou livest; report me and my cause aright –
as thou’rt a man, give me th-stop!
a special providence… if it be now,
’tis not to come. ’tis not to come. ’tis now:
now telling truth for you, and then – “to come”?
what then? to die? to sleep – no more;
and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache…

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September 6th, 2014