POEMS BY OSCAR WILDE

WITH THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

Twelfth Edition

p. ivFirst Published—

Ravenna

1878

Poems

1881

,, Fifth Edition

1882

The Sphinx

1894

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

1898

First Issued by Methuen and Co. (Limited Editions on Handmade Paper and Japanese Vellum)

March 1908

Seventh Edition (F’cap. 8vo).

September 1909

Eighth Edition ( ,, ,, )

November 1909

Ninth Edition ( ,, ,, )

December 1909

Tenth Edition ( ,, ,, )

November 1910

Eleventh Edition ( ,, ,, )

December 1911

Twelfth Edition ( ,, ,, )

April 1913

NOTE

This collection of Wilde’s Poems contains the volume of 1881 in its entirety, ‘The Sphinx’, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ and ‘Ravenna.’ Of the Uncollected Poems published in the Uniform Edition of 1908, a few, including the Translations from the Greek and the Polish, are omitted. Two new poems, ‘Désespoir’ and ‘Pan,’ which I have recently discovered in manuscript, are now printed for the first time. Particulars as to the original publication of each poem will be found in ‘A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde,’ by Stuart Mason, London 1907.

Robert Ross.

p. vCONTENTS

POEMS (1881):

PAGE

Hélas!

3

Eleutheria:

Sonnet To Liberty

7

Ave Imperatrix

8

To Milton

14

Louis Napoleon

15

Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria

16

Quantum Mutata

17

Libertatis Sacra Fames

18

Theoretikos

19

The Garden of Eros

21

Rosa Mystica:

Requiescat

39

Sonnet on approaching Italy

40

San Miniato

41

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

42

Italia

43

Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa

44

Rome Unvisited

45

p. viUrbs Sacra Æterna

49

Sonnet on hearing the Dies Iræ sung in the Sistine Chapel

50

Easter Day

51

E Tenebris

52

Vita Nuova

53

Madonna Mia

54

The New Helen

55

The Burden Of Itys

61

Wind Flowers:

Impression du Matin

83

Magdalen Walks

84

Athanasia

86

Serenade

89

Endymion

91

La Bella Donna della mia Mente

93

Chanson

95

Charmides

97

Flowers of Gold:

Impressions: I. Les Silhouettes

135

II. La Fuite de la Lune

136

The Grave of Keats

137

Theocritus: A Villanelle

138

In the Gold Room: A Harmony

139

Ballade de Marguerite

140

The Dole of the King’s Daughter

143

Amor Intellectualis

145

Santa Decca

146

A Vision

147

Impression de Voyage

148

p. viiThe Grave of Shelley

149

By the Arno

150

Impressions de Théàtre:

Fabien dei Franchi

155

Phèdre

156

Sonnets written at the Lyceum Theatre

I. Portia

157

II. Queen Henrietta Maria

158

III. Camma

159

Panthea

161

The Fourth Movement:

Impression: Le Réveillon

175

At Verona

176

Apologia

177

Quia Multum Amavi

179

Silentium Amoris

180

Her Voice

181

My Voice

183

Tædium Vitæ

184

Humanitad

185

Flower of Love:

ΓΛΥΚΥΠΙΚΡΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ

211

UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1876–1893):

From Spring Days to Winter

217

Tristitiæ

219

The True Knowledge

220

p. viiiImpressions: I. Le Jardin

221

II. La Mer

222

Under the Balcony

223

The Harlot’s House

225

Le Jardin des Tuileries

227

On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters

228

The New Remorse

229

Fantasisies Décoratives: I. Le Panneau

230

II. Les Ballons

232

Canzonet

233

Symphony in Yellow

235

In the Forest

236

To my Wife: With a Copy of my Poems

237

With a Copy of ‘A House of Pomegranates’

238

Roses and Rue

239

Désespoir

242

Pan: Double Villanelle

243

THE SPHINX (1894)

245

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (1898)

269

RAVENNA (1878)

305

p. 1POEMS

p. 3HÉLAS!

To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God: Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance— And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

p. 5ELEUTHERIA

p. 7SONNET TO LIBERTY

Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes See nothing save their own unlovely woe, Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,— But that the roar of thy Democracies, Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, Mirror my wildest passions like the sea And give my rage a brother—! Liberty! For this sake only do thy dissonant cries Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades Rob nations of their rights inviolate And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet, These Christs that die upon the barricades, God knows it I am with them, in some things.

p. 8AVE IMPERATRIX

Set in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of fight, And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England’s wars Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, To battle with the storm that mars The stars of England’s chivalry.

p. 9The brazen-throated clarion blows Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, And the high steeps of Indian snows Shake to the tread of armèd men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes To tell how he hath heard afar The measured roll of English drums Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, England with bare and bloody feet Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height, Grey pillar of the Indian sky, Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight Our wingèd dogs of Victory?

The almond-groves of Samarcand, Bokhara, where red lilies blow, And Oxus, by whose yellow sand The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

p. 10And on from thence to Ispahan, The gilded garden of the sun, Whence the long dusty caravan Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabool Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet, Whose marble tanks are ever full With water for the noonday heat:

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar A little maid Circassian Is led, a present from the Czar Unto some old and bearded khan,—

Here have our wild war-eagles flown, And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; But the sad dove, that sits alone In England—she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean To greet her love with love-lit eyes: Down in some treacherous black ravine, Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see The lingering wistful children wait To climb upon their father’s knee; And in each house made desolate

p. 11Pale women who have lost their lord Will kiss the relics of the slain— Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls, And many in the Afghan land, And many where the Ganges falls Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie, And others in the seas which are The portals to the East, or by The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep! O silence of the sunless day! O still ravine! O stormy deep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son?

p. 12Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore Possess the flower of English land— Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound The whole round world with nets of gold, If hidden in our heart is found The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride, Pine-forest-like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? Where is our English chivalry? Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send! O wasted dust! O senseless clay! Is this the end! is this the end!

p. 13Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead To vex their solemn slumber so; Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall descry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these crimson seas of war.

p. 14TO MILTON

Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers; This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, And the age changed unto a mimic play Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours: For all our pomp and pageantry and powers We are but fit to delve the common clay, Seeing this little isle on which we stand, This England, this sea-lion of the sea, By ignorant demagogues is held in fee, Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land Which bare a triple empire in her hand When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

p. 15LOUIS NAPOLEON

Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings When far away upon a barbarous strand, In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!

Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red, Or ride in state through Paris in the van Of thy returning legions, but instead Thy mother France, free and republican,

Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place The better laurels of a soldier’s crown, That not dishonoured should thy soul go down To tell the mighty Sire of thy race

That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, And found it sweeter than his honied bees, And that the giant wave Democracy Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.

p. 16SONNET

ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA

Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre? And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones? For here the air is horrid with men’s groans, The priests who call upon Thy name are slain, Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain From those whose children lie upon the stones? Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom Curtains the land, and through the starless night Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see! If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

p. 17QUANTUM MUTATA

There was a time in Europe long ago When no man died for freedom anywhere, But England’s lion leaping from its lair Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so While England could a great Republic show. Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair The Pontiff in his painted portico Trembled before our stern ambassadors. How comes it then that from such high estate We have thus fallen, save that Luxury With barren merchandise piles up the gate Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by: Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.

p. 18LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES

Albeit nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Kinglike and no man Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.

p. 19THEORETIKOS

This mighty empire hath but feet of clay: Of all its ancient chivalry and might Our little island is forsaken quite: Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, And from its hills that voice hath passed away Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it, Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit For this vile traffic-house, where day by day Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart, And the rude people rage with ignorant cries Against an heritage of centuries. It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art And loftiest culture I would stand apart, Neither for God, nor for his enemies.

p. 21THE GARDEN OF EROS

p. 23It is full summer now, the heart of June; Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir Upon the upland meadow where too soon Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer, Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil, That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on To vex the rose with jealousy, and still The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, And like a strayed and wandering reveller Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, One pale narcissus loiters fearfully Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid Of their own loveliness some violets lie That will not look the gold sun in the face For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

p. 24Which should be trodden by Persephone When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis! Or danced on by the lads of Arcady! The hidden secret of eternal bliss Known to the Grecian here a man might find, Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine, That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve, And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spirèd hollyhock red-crocketed To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, Its little bellringer, go seek instead Some other pleasaunce; the anemone That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine In pale virginity; the winter snow Will suit it better than those lips of thine Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go p. 25And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis, That morning star which does not dread the sun, And budding marjoram which but to kiss Would sweeten Cytheræa’s lips and make Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King, And foxgloves with their nodding chalices, But that one narciss which the startled Spring Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

p. 26Ah! leave it for a subtle memory Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun, When April laughed between her tears to see The early primrose with shy footsteps run From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold, Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry! And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan Wonder what young intruder dares to sing In these still haunts, where never foot of man Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, And why the hapless nightingale forbears To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone p. 27When 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.

p. 28Spirit 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 p. 29Still 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.

p. 30And 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.