A Sense of Irony

Hamlet and Laertes vied to outdo each other  
In grief over dead Ophelia.  
They leapt into her grave and grappled,  
Each proclaiming the vastness of his desolation.  
But was this true emotion?  
Or was it rather the self-dramatization  
Which can afflict us all 
When we feel in the presence  
Of momentous happenings?  
   
In other lands, we see the crowds  
Around a leader's funeral.  
They wail, they tear their hair,  
They are beside themselves with grief,  
They throng the streets and will not be consoled.  
Does emotion lie so close to the surface?  
Or does this public outpouring of grief  
Satisfy a self-indulgent need within  
To feel that they are being overwhelmed  
By something awesome, greater than themselves?  
   
I never saw myself as a leaper on to coffins,  
But perhaps that is my lack.    
Perhaps to see oneself  
Is one's undoing.  
It may be that a true response to life  
Is acting on the moment without thought,  
Following instinct and blood  
Without reflection pulling at the sleeve  
With a restraining hand.  
   
Perhaps I, then, am the self-dramatist,  
The one who feels he plays a part,  
And perhaps that nagging sense of irony  
Is just the way I keep a distance  
Between myself  
And Life.