Works

(Oscar Wilde.)


I gazed upon thee desolate and heard
Thine anguished cry when fell the iron gin
That all but broke thy soul, yet gave thy word
The strength to ask forgiveness of thy sin.
...

With sordid floods the wintry Urn
Hath stain'd fair Richmond's level green:
Her naked hill the Dryads mourn,
No longer a poetic scene.
No longer there thy raptur'd eye...

("Canaris! nous t'avons oubli'.")

[VIII., October, 1832.]


O Canaris! O Canaris! the poet's song
Has blameful left untold thy deeds too long!
But when the tragic actor's part is done,...

Trampled yet red is the last of the embers,
Red the last cloud of a sun that has set;
What of your sleeping though Flanders remembers,
What of your waking, if England forget?
...

Ellisland, Monday Evening.

Your news and review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming;
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign,...

Concealed within the shady wood
A mother left her sleeping child,
And flew, to cull her rustic food,
The fruitage of the forest wild.

But storms upon her pathway rise,...

When midnight came to close the year,
We sighed to think it thus should take
The hours it gave us--hours as dear
As sympathy and love could make
Their blessed moments,--every sun...

KILLED IN AN AEROPLANE ACCIDENT, JULY, 1916


It was Thy will, O God. And so he died!
For seventeen sweet years he was a child
Upon whose grace Thy loving-kindness smiled,...

Oh, that the golden lyre divine
Whence David smote flame-tones were mine!
Oh, that the silent harp which hung
Untuned, unstrung,
Upon the willows by the river,
Would throb beneath my touch and quiver...

Stay while ye will, or go,
And leave no scent behind ye:
Yet trust me, I shall know
The place where I may find ye.

Within my Lucia's cheek,
(Whose livery ye wear)
Play ye at hide or seek,...

1.

Think'st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffus'd in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmov'd thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?


2.
...

WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832.


When I would sing thy beauty's light,
Such various forms, and all so bright,
I've seen thee, from thy childhood, wear,
I know not which to call most fair,...

You turn your back, you turn your back,
And never your face to me,
Alone you take your homeward track,
And scorn my company.

What will you do when Charley's seen
Dewbeating down this way?...

From the Gentleman's London Magazine for January.

My lines to him you give; to speak your due,
'Tis what no man alive will say of you.
Your works are like old Jacob's speckled goats,...

On his sending about specimens to force people to subscribe to his Longinus.

Thus vagrant beggars, to extort
By charity a mean support,
Their sores and putrid ulcers show,...

My brother, my Valerius, dearest head
Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother
Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read
My brother.

No dust that death or time can strew may smother...

Oh for the nights when we used to sit
In the firelight's glow or flicker,
With the gas turned low and our pipes all lit,
And the air fast growing thicker;

When you, enthroned in the big arm-chair,...

If 'mongst my many poems I can see
One only worthy to be wash'd by thee,
I live for ever, let the rest all lie
In dens of darkness or condemn'd to die.

With kindly thought I'd give, Oh Censorinus,
Bowls and bronze vases pleasing to each friend;
Tripods I'd offer, prizes of brave Grecians,
And not the worst of gifts to you I'd send...

Now is the rhymer's honest trade
A thing for scornful laughter made.

The merchant's sneer, the clerk's disdain,
These are the burden of our pain.

Because of you did this befall,...