Empathy

What’s Hecuba to me, indeed
I too have sat, unmoved
As those who’re closest to me bleed
In fact I have approved
Their suffering seems to ignite
In me a latent vice
The very nature of their plight
Adding a certain spice
The poet’s words are like a shard
A sharp, reflective glass
The portraits are forever scarred
Absorbed in their morass
The tears flow freely, stranger still
I do not wish them dry
Perhaps they’ll rid me of this chill
Perhaps, I know not why

Author notes: The passage from Hamlet: Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his whole conceit That, from her working, all the visage warmed, Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing, For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,