Millais Does Shakespeare in Winter
The famous artist used his lissom model
to paint the maid Ophelia on a stream
with willows overhanging all its banks.
He was driven by his vision to begin
but how would he depict the watery scene?
He laid sweet Lizzie Siddall in a bath
With lamps beneath the tub to keep her warm.
Her palms upturned, she floated, fully clothed.
So obsessed was Milais by his task
He quite forgot to notice how time passed.
Five hours flew by and each oil lamp burned out
before he freed his model from the pose.
Drenched and numb, the uncomplaining girl
failed to recover from her long ordeal,
Pneumonia followed; though Millais paid the bills,
a stain removed to shadow her short life.
The drowned Ophelia lives for us today,
her story and her songs still tell the tale
while no one cares for damaged Lizzie now,
the victim of too literal a mind.
Suzanne Edgar
