She Was Not My Ophelia

She loved me. I loved her, and love her still.
She went to the river, but did not herself kill.

There was a brightness too deep in her eyes,
A love of life in which she was of all most wise
Of any I met, of any love I could have found.
She did not fear an eternity in the ground,
But knew it was coming, and saw no reason
To end her experience of her life's long season.
She went to gather flowers by the river's song,
But to her, suicide would have been most wrong,
Surrounded by the scent and colors of flowers,
With the river's song to cheer her quiet hours.

No, though she drifts in water and looks up,
Unseeing eyes fixed on heaven's blue cup,
She did not drown or die in water by her will.
Yet there she floats, staring upwards, and still.

I loved her more than Hamlet loved his girl;
For her I would have given more than the world.
For her I would have sunk into surrender,
And accepted the twine of water-weed slender
Around my throat, as it is now around hers,
And the stillness of flowers and of wind-whispers.

She drifts, almost lovely with her hair spread
Around and in the shadow of her floating head.
She is still, with no flutter of breath or of heart
To mark her as something from water set apart.
She lies, throat gleaming both white and blue
Like the flowers that on her body I strew.

She loved me. I loved her, and love her still.
Never think that my love would herself kill.