Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde Oscar

To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone

      When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,

      And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

      And I will sing how sad Proserpina

         Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,

      And lure the silver-breasted Helena

         Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,

      So shalt thou see that awful loveliness

      For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

      And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale

         How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,

      And hidden in a grey and misty veil

         Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun

      Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase

      Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

      And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,

         We may behold Her face who long ago

      Dwelt among men by the Ægean sea,

         And whose sad house with pillaged portico

      And friezeless wall and columns toppled down

      Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

      Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,

         They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;

      Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile

         Is better than a thousand victories,

      Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo

      Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

      Who for thy sake would give their manlihood

         And consecrate their being; I at least

      Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,

         And in thy temples found a goodlier feast

      Than this starved age can give me, spite of all

      Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

      Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,

         The woods of white Colonos are not here,

      On our bleak hills the olive never blows,

         No simple priest conducts his lowing steer

      Up the steep marble way, nor through the town

      Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

      Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,

         Whose very name should be a memory

      To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest

         Beneath the Roman walls, and melody

      Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play

      The lute of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away.

      Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left

         One silver voice to sing his threnody,

      But ah! too soon of it we were bereft

         When on that riven night and stormy sea

      Panthea claimed her singer as her own,

      And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,

      Save for that fiery heart, that morning star

         Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye

      Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war

         The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy

      Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring

      The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

      And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,

         And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot

      In passionless and fierce virginity

         Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute

      Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,

      And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

      And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,

         And sung the Galilæan’s requiem,

      That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine

         He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him

      Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,

      And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

      Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,

         It is not quenched the torch of poesy,

      The star that shook above the Eastern hill

         Holds unassailed its argent armoury

      From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight —

      O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

      Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,

         Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,

      With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled

         The weary soul of man in troublous need,

      And from the far and flowerless fields of ice

      Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

      We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,

         Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,

      How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,

         And what enchantment held the king in thrall

      When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers

      That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

      Long listless summer hours when the noon

         Being enamoured of a damask rose

      Forgets to journey westward, till the moon

         The pale usurper of its tribute grows

      From a thin sickle to a silver shield

      And chides its loitering car – how oft, in some cool grassy field

      Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,

         At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come

      Almost before the blackbird finds a mate

         And overstay the swallow, and the hum

      Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,

      Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

      And through their unreal woes and mimic pain

         Wept for myself, and so was purified,

      And in their simple mirth grew glad again;

         For as I sailed upon that pictured tide

      The strength and splendour of the storm was mine

      Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

      The little laugh of water falling down

         Is not so musical, the clammy gold

      Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town

         Has less of sweetness in it, and the old

      Half-withered