Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde Part 7

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 pa.s.sion, 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 gra.s.sy 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 h.o.a.rded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!

Although the cheating merchants of the mart With iron roads profane our lovely isle, And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, Ay! though the crowded factories beget The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is, - He bears his name From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, {3} - Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame To light thine altar; He {4} too loves thee well, Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare, And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him A gorgeous-coloured vest.i.ture must wear, And Sorrow take a purple diadem, Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be Even in anguish beautiful; - such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, Being a better mirror of his age In all his pity, love, and weariness, Than those who can but copy common things, And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown, And men can prophesy about the sun, And lecture on his arrows - how, alone, Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Poem: The Harlot's House

We caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin To sound of horn and violin, Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand, And danced a stately saraband; Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed A phantom lover to her breast, Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette Came out, and smoked its cigarette Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said, 'The dead are dancing with the dead, The dust is whirling with the dust.'

But she - she heard the violin, And left my side, and entered in: Love pa.s.sed into the house of l.u.s.t.

Then suddenly the tune went false, The dancers wearied of the waltz, The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.

Poem: From 'The Burden Of Itys'

This English Thames is holier far than Rome, Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck their blue waves, - G.o.d is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

Those violet-gleaming b.u.t.terflies that take Yon creamy lily for their pavilion Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees Does well for Palaestrina, one would say The mighty master's hands were on the keys Of the Maria organ, which they play When early on some sapphire Easter morn In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

From his dark House out to the Balcony Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy To toss their silver lances in the air, And stretching out weak hands to East and West In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

Is not yon lingering orange after-glow That stays to vex the moon more fair than all Rome's lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago I knelt before some crimson Cardinal Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, And now - those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring Through this cool evening than the odorous Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, And makes G.o.d's body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Ma.s.s Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird Sings overhead, and through the long cool gra.s.s I see that throbbing throat which once I heard On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees That round and round the linden blossoms play; And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring While the last violet loiters by the well, And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing The song of Linus through a sunny dell Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, And from the copse left desolate and bare Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart Brake in each separate note, a quality Which music sometimes has, being the Art Which is most nigh to tears and memory; Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?

Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, No woven web of b.l.o.o.d.y heraldries, But mossy dells for roving comrades made, Warm valleys where the tired student lies With half-shut book, and many a winding walk Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young Across the trampled towing-path, where late A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

The heron pa.s.ses homeward to the mere, The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, Gold world by world the silent stars appear, And like a blossom blown before the breeze A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, She knows Endymion is not far away; 'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed Which has no message of its own to play, So pipes another's bidding, it is I, Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill About the sombre woodland seems to cling Dying in music, else the air is still, So still that one might hear the bat's small wing Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell's br.i.m.m.i.n.g cell.

And far away across the lengthening wold, Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, Magdalen's tall tower tipped with tremulous gold Marks the long High Street of the little town, And warns me to return; I must not wait, Hark ! 't is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.