oldbookillustrations:

Ophelia.

John Hayter, frontispiece from Shakespeare’s heroines on the stage, by Charles E. L. Wingate, New York, 1895.

(Source: archive.org)

It looks like I’m going to reblog all of these :3

earwigbiscuits:

Ophelia…illustration by Sir John Gilbert, 1811-1897 (via Yesterday’s Papers)

Mignon Nevada as Ophelia, 1910

John William Waterhouse, Study for Ophelia, circa 1908

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

- Robert Herrick, To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time