Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde Part 6

How vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the cool olives of the Academe: Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again Back to this common world so dull and vain, For thou wert weary of the sunless day, The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, The loveless lips with which men kiss in h.e.l.l.

Poem: Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel

Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering.

The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: A bird at evening flying to its nest Tells me of One who had no place of rest: I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.

Come rather on some autumn afternoon, When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, And the fields echo to the gleaner's song, Come when the splendid fulness of the moon Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

Poem: Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see A scene of wondrous glory, as was told Of some great G.o.d who in a rain of gold Broke open bars and fell on Danae: Or a dread vision as when Semele Sickening for love and unappeased desire Prayed to see G.o.d's clear body, and the fire Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly: With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand Before this supreme mystery of Love: Some kneeling girl with pa.s.sionless pale face, An angel with a lily in his hand, And over both the white wings of a Dove.

FLORENCE.

Poem: Libertatis 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 b.l.o.o.d.y feet.

Poem: Roses And Rue

(To L. L.)

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love's song, We are parted too long.

Could the pa.s.sionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet By an ivied seat, And you warbled each pretty word With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it, Just like a linnet, And shook, as the blackbird's throat With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after.

You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began.

I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet.

I remember your hair - did I tie it?

For it always ran riot - Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: These things are old.

I remember so well the room, And the lilac bloom That beat at the dripping pane In the warm June rain;

And the colour of your gown, It was amber-brown, And two yellow satin bows From your shoulders rose.

And the handkerchief of French lace Which you held to your face - Had a small tear left a stain?

Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu There were veins of blue; In your voice as it said good-bye Was a petulant cry,

'You have only wasted your life.'

(Ah, that was the knife!) When I rushed through the garden gate It was all too late.

Could we live it over again, Were it worth the pain, Could the pa.s.sionate past that is fled Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break, Dear love, for your sake, It will break in music, I know, Poets' hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell G.o.d's heaven and h.e.l.l.

Poem: From 'The Garden Of Eros'

[In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the nineteenth century. He hails Keats and Sh.e.l.ley and some of the poets and artists who were his contemporaries, although his seniors, as the torch-bearers of the intellectual life. Among these are Swinburne, William Morris, Rossetti, and Brune-Jones.]

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left One silver voice to sing his threnody, {1} 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 {2} 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 pa.s.sionless and fierce virginity Hunting the tusked 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 Galilaean's requiem, That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine He hath discrowned, the Ancient G.o.ds 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 una.s.sailed 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.