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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:33 -0700 |
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diff --git a/1141-h/1141-h.htm b/1141-h/1141-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e05f824 --- /dev/null +++ b/1141-h/1141-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2789 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar +Wilde, Edited by Robert Ross + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde + including The Ballad of Reading Gaol + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Editor: Robert Ross + +Release Date: September 27, 2014 [eBook #1141] +[This file was first posted on November 21, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>SELECTED POEMS<br /> +OF OSCAR WILDE</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">INCLUDING</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE BALLAD OF<br /> +READING GAOL</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">METHUEN & CO. LTD.<br /> +36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br /> +LONDON</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><i>This Volume was First Published</i></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>August 17th</i>,</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>1911</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Second Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>August</i></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>1911</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Third Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>September</i></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>1911</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>‘<i>The Ballad of Reading Goal</i>’ <i>was first +published by Leonard Smithers</i>, <i>February 13th</i>, +<i>1898</i>. <i>Second Edition</i>, <i>February</i>, +<i>1898</i>. <i>Third Edition</i>, <i>March 1898</i>. +<i>Fourth Edition</i>, <i>March 1898</i>. <i>Fifth +Edition</i>, <i>March 1898</i>. <i>Sixth Edition</i>, +<i>1898</i>. <i>Seventh Edition</i>, <i>1899</i>. +<i>Eighth and Cheaper Edition</i> (<i>1s. net</i>). +<i>Methuen & Co.</i>, <i>Ltd.</i>, <i>August 1910</i>. +<i>Ninth Edition</i>, <i>September 1910</i>. ‘<i>The +Ballad of Reading Goal</i>’ <i>was published anonymously +under the signature of C. 3. 3</i>. <i>The author’s +name first appeared on the title-page of the Seventh +Edition</i>. <i>It was included in the Collected Edition of +the author’s Poems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and +1909</i>.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p><i>Wilde’s Poems were first published in volume form in +1881</i>, <i>and were reprinted four times before the end of +1882</i>. <i>A new edition with additional poems</i>, +<i>including Ravenna</i>, <i>The Sphinx</i>, <i>and The Ballad of +Reading Gaol</i>, <i>was first published</i> (<i>limited issues +on hand-made paper and Japanese vellum</i>) <i>by Methuen & +Co. in March 1908</i>. <i>A further edition</i> (<i>making +the seventh</i>) <i>with some omissions from the issue of +1908</i>, <i>but including two new poems</i>, <i>was published in +September 1909</i>. <i>Eighth Edition</i>, <i>November +1909</i>. <i>Ninth Edition</i>, <i>December 1909</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFACE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is thought that a selection from +Oscar Wilde’s early verses may be of interest to a large +public at present familiar only with the always popular <i>Ballad +of Reading Gaol</i>, also included in this volume. The +poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex +years old, and though never, until recently, well received by the +critics, have survived the test of <span +class="GutSmall">NINE</span> editions. Readers will be able +to make for themselves the obvious and striking contrasts <a +name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>between these +first and last phases of Oscar Wilde’s literary +activity. The intervening period was devoted almost +entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and criticism.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">ROBERT ROSS</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Reform Club</span>,<br /> + <i>April</i> 5, 1911.</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Preface</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pagev">v</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">The Ballad of Reading +Gaol</span> (<i>Complete Version</i>)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">The Ballad of Reading +Gaol</span> (<i>Shorter Version</i>)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Ave Imperatrix</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page89">89</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">To My Wife (with a copy of +my poems)</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Magdalen Walks</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Theocritus—a +Villanelle</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><span class="smcap">Sonnets</span>—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Greece</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Portia (to Ellen Terry)</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Fabien Dei Franchi (to Henry +Irving)</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page112">112</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Phèdre (to Sarah +Bernhardt)</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span><span class="smcap">On Hearing The Dies Iræ Sung +In The Sistine Chapel</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Ave Maria Gratia Plena</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page118">118</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Libertatis Sacra Fames</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page120">120</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Roses and Rue</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page122">122</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">From ‘The Garden of +Eros’</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page128">128</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Harlot’s House</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page140">140</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">From ‘The Burden of +Itys’</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page144">144</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Flower of Love</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page158">158</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>NOTE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the end of the complete text +will be found a shorter version based on the original draft of +the poem. This is included for the benefit of reciters and +their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for +declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without +officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary +executor, by falling back on a text which represents the +author’s first scheme for a poem—never intended of +course for recitation.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">ROBERT ROSS</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">IN MEMORIAM<br /> +C. T. W.<br /> +Sometimes trooper of<br /> +The Royal Horse Guards<br /> +Obiit H.M. Prison<br /> +Reading, Berkshire<br /> +July 7th, 1896</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>THE +BALLAD OF READING GAOL</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">He</span> did not wear his +scarlet coat,<br /> + For blood and wine are red,<br /> +And blood and wine were on his hands<br /> + When they found him with the dead,<br /> +The poor dead woman whom he loved,<br /> + And murdered in her bed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>He walked amongst the Trial Men<br /> + In a suit of shabby grey;<br /> +A cricket cap was on his head,<br /> + And his step seemed light and gay;<br /> +But I never saw a man who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry">I never saw a man who looked<br /> + With such a wistful eye<br /> +Upon that little tent of blue<br /> + Which prisoners call the sky,<br /> +And at every drifting cloud that went<br /> + With sails of silver by.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>I walked, with other souls in pain,<br /> + Within another ring,<br /> +And was wondering if the man had done<br /> + A great or little thing,<br /> +When a voice behind me whispered low,<br /> + ‘<i>That fellow’s got to +swing</i>.’</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear Christ! the very prison walls<br /> + Suddenly seemed to reel,<br /> +And the sky above my head became<br /> + Like a casque of scorching steel;<br /> +And, though I was a soul in pain,<br /> + My pain I could not feel.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>I only knew what hunted thought<br /> + Quickened his step, and why<br /> +He looked upon the garish day<br /> + With such a wistful eye;<br /> +The man had killed the thing he loved,<br /> + And so he had to die.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet each man kills the thing he loves,<br /> + By each let this be heard,<br /> +Some do it with a bitter look,<br /> + Some with a flattering word,<br /> +The coward does it with a kiss,<br /> + The brave man with a sword!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>Some kill their love when they are young,<br /> + And some when they are old;<br /> +Some strangle with the hands of Lust,<br /> + Some with the hands of Gold:<br /> +The kindest use a knife, because<br /> + The dead so soon grow cold.</p> +<p class="poetry">Some love too little, some too long,<br /> + Some sell, and others buy;<br /> +Some do the deed with many tears,<br /> + And some without a sigh:<br /> +For each man kills the thing he loves,<br /> + Yet each man does not die.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span>He does not die a death of shame<br /> + On a day of dark disgrace,<br /> +Nor have a noose about his neck,<br /> + Nor a cloth upon his face,<br /> +Nor drop feet foremost through the floor<br /> + Into an empty space.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not sit with silent men<br /> + Who watch him night and day;<br /> +Who watch him when he tries to weep,<br /> + And when he tries to pray;<br /> +Who watch him lest himself should rob<br /> + The prison of its prey.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>He does not wake at dawn to see<br /> + Dread figures throng his room,<br /> +The shivering Chaplain robed in white,<br /> + The Sheriff stern with gloom,<br /> +And the Governor all in shiny black,<br /> + With the yellow face of Doom.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not rise in piteous haste<br /> + To put on convict-clothes,<br /> +While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes<br /> + Each new and nerve-twitched pose,<br /> +Fingering a watch whose little ticks<br /> + Are like horrible hammer-blows.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>He does not know that sickening thirst<br /> + That sands one’s throat, before<br /> +The hangman with his gardener’s gloves<br /> + Slips through the padded door,<br /> +And binds one with three leathern thongs,<br /> + That the throat may thirst no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not bend his head to hear<br /> + The Burial Office read,<br /> +Nor, while the terror of his soul<br /> + Tells him he is not dead,<br /> +Cross his own coffin, as he moves<br /> + Into the hideous shed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>He does not stare upon the air<br /> + Through a little roof of glass:<br /> +He does not pray with lips of clay<br /> + For his agony to pass;<br /> +Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek<br /> + The kiss of Caiaphas.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Six</span> weeks our +guardsman walked the yard,<br /> + In the suit of shabby grey:<br /> +His cricket cap was on his head,<br /> + And his step seemed light and gay,<br /> +But I never saw a man who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>I never saw a man who looked<br /> + With such a wistful eye<br /> +Upon that little tent of blue<br /> + Which prisoners call the sky,<br /> +And at every wandering cloud that trailed<br /> + Its ravelled fleeces by.</p> +<p class="poetry">He did not wring his hands, as do<br /> + Those witless men who dare<br /> +To try to rear the changeling Hope<br /> + In the cave of black Despair:<br /> +He only looked upon the sun,<br /> + And drank the morning air.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>He did not wring his hands nor weep,<br /> + Nor did he peek or pine,<br /> +But he drank the air as though it held<br /> + Some healthful anodyne;<br /> +With open mouth he drank the sun<br /> + As though it had been wine!</p> +<p class="poetry">And I and all the souls in pain,<br /> + Who tramped the other ring,<br /> +Forgot if we ourselves had done<br /> + A great or little thing,<br /> +And watched with gaze of dull amaze<br /> + The man who had to swing.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>And strange it was to see him pass<br /> + With a step so light and gay,<br /> +And strange it was to see him look<br /> + So wistfully at the day,<br /> +And strange it was to think that he<br /> + Had such a debt to pay.</p> +<p class="poetry">For oak and elm have pleasant leaves<br /> + That in the springtime shoot:<br /> +But grim to see is the gallows-tree,<br /> + With its adder-bitten root,<br /> +And, green or dry, a man must die<br /> + Before it bears its fruit!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>The loftiest place is that seat of grace<br /> + For which all worldlings try:<br /> +But who would stand in hempen band<br /> + Upon a scaffold high,<br /> +And through a murderer’s collar take<br /> + His last look at the sky?</p> +<p class="poetry">It is sweet to dance to violins<br /> + When Love and Life are fair:<br /> +To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes<br /> + Is delicate and rare:<br /> +But it is not sweet with nimble feet<br /> + To dance upon the air!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>So with curious eyes and sick surmise<br /> + We watched him day by day,<br /> +And wondered if each one of us<br /> + Would end the self-same way,<br /> +For none can tell to what red Hell<br /> + His sightless soul may stray.</p> +<p class="poetry">At last the dead man walked no more<br /> + Amongst the Trial Men,<br /> +And I knew that he was standing up<br /> + In the black dock’s dreadful pen,<br /> +And that never would I see his face<br /> + In God’s sweet world again.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>Like two doomed ships that pass in storm<br /> + We had crossed each other’s way:<br /> +But we made no sign, we said no word,<br /> + We had no word to say;<br /> +For we did not meet in the holy night,<br /> + But in the shameful day.</p> +<p class="poetry">A prison wall was round us both,<br /> + Two outcast men we were:<br /> +The world had thrust us from its heart,<br /> + And God from out His care:<br /> +And the iron gin that waits for Sin<br /> + Had caught us in its snare.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Debtors’ +Yard the stones are hard,<br /> + And the dripping wall is high,<br /> +So it was there he took the air<br /> + Beneath the leaden sky,<br /> +And by each side a Warder walked,<br /> + For fear the man might die.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>Or else he sat with those who watched<br /> + His anguish night and day;<br /> +Who watched him when he rose to weep,<br /> + And when he crouched to pray;<br /> +Who watched him lest himself should rob<br /> + Their scaffold of its prey.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Governor was strong upon<br /> + The Regulations Act:<br /> +The Doctor said that Death was but<br /> + A scientific fact:<br /> +And twice a day the Chaplain called,<br /> + And left a little tract.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>And twice a day he smoked his pipe,<br /> + And drank his quart of beer:<br /> +His soul was resolute, and held<br /> + No hiding-place for fear;<br /> +He often said that he was glad<br /> + The hangman’s hands were near.</p> +<p class="poetry">But why he said so strange a thing<br /> + No Warder dared to ask:<br /> +For he to whom a watcher’s doom<br /> + Is given as his task,<br /> +Must set a lock upon his lips,<br /> + And make his face a mask.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>Or else he might be moved, and try<br /> + To comfort or console:<br /> +And what should Human Pity do<br /> + Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?<br /> +What word of grace in such a place<br /> + Could help a brother’s soul?</p> +<p class="poetry">With slouch and swing around the ring<br /> + We trod the Fools’ Parade!<br /> +We did not care: we knew we were<br /> + The Devil’s Own Brigade:<br /> +And shaven head and feet of lead<br /> + Make a merry masquerade.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>We tore the tarry rope to shreds<br /> + With blunt and bleeding nails;<br /> +We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,<br /> + And cleaned the shining rails:<br /> +And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,<br /> + And clattered with the pails.</p> +<p class="poetry">We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,<br /> + We turned the dusty drill:<br /> +We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,<br /> + And sweated on the mill:<br /> +But in the heart of every man<br /> + Terror was lying still.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>So still it lay that every day<br /> + Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:<br /> +And we forgot the bitter lot<br /> + That waits for fool and knave,<br /> +Till once, as we tramped in from work,<br /> + We passed an open grave.</p> +<p class="poetry">With yawning mouth the yellow hole<br /> + Gaped for a living thing;<br /> +The very mud cried out for blood<br /> + To the thirsty asphalte ring:<br /> +And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair<br /> + Some prisoner had to swing.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>Right in we went, with soul intent<br /> + On Death and Dread and Doom:<br /> +The hangman, with his little bag,<br /> + Went shuffling through the gloom:<br /> +And each man trembled as he crept<br /> + Into his numbered tomb.</p> +<p class="poetry">That night the empty corridors<br /> + Were full of forms of Fear,<br /> +And up and down the iron town<br /> + Stole feet we could not hear,<br /> +And through the bars that hide the stars<br /> + White faces seemed to peer.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>He lay as one who lies and dreams<br /> + In a pleasant meadow-land,<br /> +The watchers watched him as he slept,<br /> + And could not understand<br /> +How one could sleep so sweet a sleep<br /> + With a hangman close at hand.</p> +<p class="poetry">But there is no sleep when men must weep<br /> + Who never yet have wept:<br /> +So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—<br /> + That endless vigil kept,<br /> +And through each brain on hands of pain<br /> + Another’s terror crept.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>Alas! it is a fearful thing<br /> + To feel another’s guilt!<br /> +For, right within, the sword of Sin<br /> + Pierced to its poisoned hilt,<br /> +And as molten lead were the tears we shed<br /> + For the blood we had not spilt.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Warders with their shoes of felt<br /> + Crept by each padlocked door,<br /> +And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,<br /> + Grey figures on the floor,<br /> +And wondered why men knelt to pray<br /> + Who never prayed before.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>All through the night we knelt and prayed,<br /> + Mad mourners of a corse!<br /> +The troubled plumes of midnight were<br /> + The plumes upon a hearse:<br /> +And bitter wine upon a sponge<br /> + Was the savour of Remorse.</p> +<p class="poetry">The grey cock crew, the red cock crew,<br /> + But never came the day:<br /> +And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,<br /> + In the corners where we lay:<br /> +And each evil sprite that walks by night<br /> + Before us seemed to play.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>They glided past, they glided fast,<br /> + Like travellers through a mist:<br /> +They mocked the moon in a rigadoon<br /> + Of delicate turn and twist,<br /> +And with formal pace and loathsome grace<br /> + The phantoms kept their tryst.</p> +<p class="poetry">With mop and mow, we saw them go,<br /> + Slim shadows hand in hand:<br /> +About, about, in ghostly rout<br /> + They trod a saraband:<br /> +And the damned grotesques made arabesques,<br /> + Like the wind upon the sand!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>With the pirouettes of marionettes,<br /> + They tripped on pointed tread:<br /> +But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,<br /> + As their grisly masque they led,<br /> +And loud they sang, and long they sang,<br /> + For they sang to wake the dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world +is wide,<br /> + But fettered limbs go lame!<br /> +And once, or twice, to throw the dice<br /> + Is a gentlemanly game,<br /> +But he does not win who plays with Sin<br /> + In the secret House of Shame.’</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>No things of air these antics were,<br /> + That frolicked with such glee:<br /> +To men whose lives were held in gyves,<br /> + And whose feet might not go free,<br /> +Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,<br /> + Most terrible to see.</p> +<p class="poetry">Around, around, they waltzed and wound;<br /> + Some wheeled in smirking pairs;<br /> +With the mincing step of a demirep<br /> + Some sidled up the stairs:<br /> +And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,<br /> + Each helped us at our prayers.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>The morning wind began to moan,<br /> + But still the night went on:<br /> +Through its giant loom the web of gloom<br /> + Crept till each thread was spun:<br /> +And, as we prayed, we grew afraid<br /> + Of the Justice of the Sun.</p> +<p class="poetry">The moaning wind went wandering round<br /> + The weeping prison-wall:<br /> +Till like a wheel of turning steel<br /> + We felt the minutes crawl:<br /> +O moaning wind! what had we done<br /> + To have such a seneschal?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>At last I saw the shadowed bars,<br /> + Like a lattice wrought in lead,<br /> +Move right across the whitewashed wall<br /> + That faced my three-plank bed,<br /> +And I knew that somewhere in the world<br /> + God’s dreadful dawn was red.</p> +<p class="poetry">At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,<br +/> + At seven all was still,<br /> +But the sough and swing of a mighty wing<br /> + The prison seemed to fill,<br /> +For the Lord of Death with icy breath<br /> + Had entered in to kill.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>He did not pass in purple pomp,<br /> + Nor ride a moon-white steed.<br /> +Three yards of cord and a sliding board<br /> + Are all the gallows’ need:<br /> +So with rope of shame the Herald came<br /> + To do the secret deed.</p> +<p class="poetry">We were as men who through a fen<br /> + Of filthy darkness grope:<br /> +We did not dare to breathe a prayer,<br /> + Or to give our anguish scope:<br /> +Something was dead in each of us,<br /> + And what was dead was Hope.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,<br /> + And will not swerve aside:<br /> +It slays the weak, it slays the strong,<br /> + It has a deadly stride:<br /> +With iron heel it slays the strong,<br /> + The monstrous parricide!</p> +<p class="poetry">We waited for the stroke of eight:<br /> + Each tongue was thick with thirst:<br /> +For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate<br /> + That makes a man accursed,<br /> +And Fate will use a running noose<br /> + For the best man and the worst.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>We had no other thing to do,<br /> + Save to wait for the sign to come:<br /> +So, like things of stone in a valley lone,<br /> + Quiet we sat and dumb:<br /> +But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,<br /> + Like a madman on a drum!</p> +<p class="poetry">With sudden shock the prison-clock<br /> + Smote on the shivering air,<br /> +And from all the gaol rose up a wail<br /> + Of impotent despair,<br /> +Like the sound that frightened marshes hear<br /> + From some leper in his lair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>And as one sees most fearful things<br /> + In the crystal of a dream,<br /> +We saw the greasy hempen rope<br /> + Hooked to the blackened beam,<br /> +And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare<br /> + Strangled into a scream.</p> +<p class="poetry">And all the woe that moved him so<br /> + That he gave that bitter cry,<br /> +And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,<br /> + None knew so well as I:<br /> +For he who lives more lives than one<br /> + More deaths than one must die.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> is no chapel +on the day<br /> + On which they hang a man:<br /> +The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,<br /> + Or his face is far too wan,<br /> +Or there is that written in his eyes<br /> + Which none should look upon.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>So they kept us close till nigh on noon,<br /> + And then they rang the bell,<br /> +And the Warders with their jingling keys<br /> + Opened each listening cell,<br /> +And down the iron stair we tramped,<br /> + Each from his separate Hell.</p> +<p class="poetry">Out into God’s sweet air we went,<br /> + But not in wonted way,<br /> +For this man’s face was white with fear,<br /> + And that man’s face was grey,<br /> +And I never saw sad men who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>I never saw sad men who looked<br /> + With such a wistful eye<br /> +Upon that little tent of blue<br /> + We prisoners called the sky,<br /> +And at every careless cloud that passed<br /> + In happy freedom by.</p> +<p class="poetry">But there were those amongst us all<br /> + Who walked with downcast head,<br /> +And knew that, had each got his due,<br /> + They should have died instead:<br /> +He had but killed a thing that lived,<br /> + Whilst they had killed the dead.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>For he who sins a second time<br /> + Wakes a dead soul to pain,<br /> +And draws it from its spotted shroud,<br /> + And makes it bleed again,<br /> +And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,<br /> + And makes it bleed in vain!</p> +<p class="poetry">Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb<br /> + With crooked arrows starred,<br /> +Silently we went round and round<br /> + The slippery asphalte yard;<br /> +Silently we went round and round,<br /> + And no man spoke a word.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>Silently we went round and round,<br /> + And through each hollow mind<br /> +The Memory of dreadful things<br /> + Rushed like a dreadful wind,<br /> +And Horror stalked before each man,<br /> + And Terror crept behind.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Warders strutted up and down,<br /> + And kept their herd of brutes,<br /> +Their uniforms were spick and span,<br /> + And they wore their Sunday suits,<br /> +But we knew the work they had been at,<br /> + By the quicklime on their boots.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>For where a grave had opened wide,<br /> + There was no grave at all:<br /> +Only a stretch of mud and sand<br /> + By the hideous prison-wall,<br /> +And a little heap of burning lime,<br /> + That the man should have his pall.</p> +<p class="poetry">For he has a pall, this wretched man,<br /> + Such as few men can claim:<br /> +Deep down below a prison-yard,<br /> + Naked for greater shame,<br /> +He lies, with fetters on each foot,<br /> + Wrapt in a sheet of flame!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>And all the while the burning lime<br /> + Eats flesh and bone away,<br /> +It eats the brittle bone by night,<br /> + And the soft flesh by day,<br /> +It eats the flesh and bone by turns,<br /> + But it eats the heart alway.</p> +<p class="poetry">For three long years they will not sow<br /> + Or root or seedling there:<br /> +For three long years the unblessed spot<br /> + Will sterile be and bare,<br /> +And look upon the wondering sky<br /> + With unreproachful stare.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span>They think a murderer’s heart would taint<br /> + Each simple seed they sow.<br /> +It is not true! God’s kindly earth<br /> + Is kindlier than men know,<br /> +And the red rose would but blow more red,<br /> + The white rose whiter blow.</p> +<p class="poetry">Out of his mouth a red, red rose!<br /> + Out of his heart a white!<br /> +For who can say by what strange way,<br /> + Christ brings His will to light,<br /> +Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore<br /> + Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>But neither milk-white rose nor red<br /> + May bloom in prison-air;<br /> +The shard, the pebble, and the flint,<br /> + Are what they give us there:<br /> +For flowers have been known to heal<br /> + A common man’s despair.</p> +<p class="poetry">So never will wine-red rose or white,<br /> + Petal by petal, fall<br /> +On that stretch of mud and sand that lies<br /> + By the hideous prison-wall,<br /> +To tell the men who tramp the yard<br /> + That God’s Son died for all.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>Yet though the hideous prison-wall<br /> + Still hems him round and round,<br /> +And a spirit may not walk by night<br /> + That is with fetters bound,<br /> +And a spirit may but weep that lies<br /> + In such unholy ground,</p> +<p class="poetry">He is at peace—this wretched +man—<br /> + At peace, or will be soon:<br /> +There is no thing to make him mad,<br /> + Nor does Terror walk at noon,<br /> +For the lampless Earth in which he lies<br /> + Has neither Sun nor Moon.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>They hanged him as a beast is hanged:<br /> + They did not even toll<br /> +A requiem that might have brought<br /> + Rest to his startled soul,<br /> +But hurriedly they took him out,<br /> + And hid him in a hole.</p> +<p class="poetry">They stripped him of his canvas clothes,<br /> + And gave him to the flies:<br /> +They mocked the swollen purple throat,<br /> + And the stark and staring eyes:<br /> +And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud<br /> + In which their convict lies.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>The Chaplain would not kneel to pray<br /> + By his dishonoured grave:<br /> +Nor mark it with that blessed Cross<br /> + That Christ for sinners gave,<br /> +Because the man was one of those<br /> + Whom Christ came down to save.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet all is well; he has but passed<br /> + To Life’s appointed bourne:<br /> +And alien tears will fill for him<br /> + Pity’s long-broken urn,<br /> +For his mourners will be outcast men,<br /> + And outcasts always mourn</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">know</span> not whether +Laws be right,<br /> + Or whether Laws be wrong;<br /> +All that we know who lie in gaol<br /> + Is that the wall is strong;<br /> +And that each day is like a year,<br /> + A year whose days are long.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>But this I know, that every Law<br /> + That men have made for Man,<br /> +Since first Man took his brother’s life,<br /> + And the sad world began,<br /> +But straws the wheat and saves the chaff<br /> + With a most evil fan.</p> +<p class="poetry">This too I know—and wise it were<br /> + If each could know the same—<br /> +That every prison that men build<br /> + Is built with bricks of shame,<br /> +And bound with bars lest Christ should see<br /> + How men their brothers maim.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>With bars they blur the gracious moon,<br /> + And blind the goodly sun:<br /> +And they do well to hide their Hell,<br /> + For in it things are done<br /> +That Son of God nor son of Man<br /> + Ever should look upon!</p> +<p class="poetry">The vilest deeds like poison weeds,<br /> + Bloom well in prison-air;<br /> +It is only what is good in Man<br /> + That wastes and withers there:<br /> +Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,<br /> + And the Warder is Despair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>For they starve the little frightened child<br /> + Till it weeps both night and day:<br /> +And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,<br /> + And gibe the old and grey,<br /> +And some grow mad, and all grow bad,<br /> + And none a word may say.</p> +<p class="poetry">Each narrow cell in which we dwell<br /> + Is a foul and dark latrine,<br /> +And the fetid breath of living Death<br /> + Chokes up each grated screen,<br /> +And all, but Lust, is turned to dust<br /> + In Humanity’s machine.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>The brackish water that we drink<br /> + Creeps with a loathsome slime,<br /> +And the bitter bread they weigh in scales<br /> + Is full of chalk and lime,<br /> +And Sleep will not lie down, but walks<br /> + Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.</p> +<p class="poetry">But though lean Hunger and green Thirst<br /> + Like asp with adder fight,<br /> +We have little care of prison fare,<br /> + For what chills and kills outright<br /> +Is that every stone one lifts by day<br /> + Becomes one’s heart by night.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>With midnight always in one’s heart,<br /> + And twilight in one’s cell,<br /> +We turn the crank, or tear the rope,<br /> + Each in his separate Hell,<br /> +And the silence is more awful far<br /> + Than the sound of a brazen bell.</p> +<p class="poetry">And never a human voice comes near<br /> + To speak a gentle word:<br /> +And the eye that watches through the door<br /> + Is pitiless and hard:<br /> +And by all forgot, we rot and rot,<br /> + With soul and body marred.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>And thus we rust Life’s iron chain<br /> + Degraded and alone:<br /> +And some men curse, and some men weep,<br /> + And some men make no moan:<br /> +But God’s eternal Laws are kind<br /> + And break the heart of stone.</p> +<p class="poetry">And every human heart that breaks,<br /> + In prison-cell or yard,<br /> +Is as that broken box that gave<br /> + Its treasure to the Lord,<br /> +And filled the unclean leper’s house<br /> + With the scent of costliest nard.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>Ah! happy they whose hearts can break<br /> + And peace of pardon win!<br /> +How else may man make straight his plan<br /> + And cleanse his soul from Sin?<br /> +How else but through a broken heart<br /> + May Lord Christ enter in?</p> +<p class="poetry">And he of the swollen purple throat,<br /> + And the stark and staring eyes,<br /> +Waits for the holy hands that took<br /> + The Thief to Paradise;<br /> +And a broken and a contrite heart<br /> + The Lord will not despise.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span>The man in red who reads the Law<br /> + Gave him three weeks of life,<br /> +Three little weeks in which to heal<br /> + His soul of his soul’s strife,<br /> +And cleanse from every blot of blood<br /> + The hand that held the knife.</p> +<p class="poetry">And with tears of blood he cleansed the +hand,<br /> + The hand that held the steel:<br /> +For only blood can wipe out blood,<br /> + And only tears can heal:<br /> +And the crimson stain that was of Cain<br /> + Became Christ’s snow-white seal.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page57"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 57</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Reading gaol by +Reading town<br /> + There is a pit of shame,<br /> +And in it lies a wretched man<br /> + Eaten by teeth of flame,<br /> +In a burning winding-sheet he lies,<br /> + And his grave has got no name.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>And there, till Christ call forth the dead,<br /> + In silence let him lie:<br /> +No need to waste the foolish tear,<br /> + Or heave the windy sigh:<br /> +The man had killed the thing he loved,<br /> + And so he had to die.</p> +<p class="poetry">And all men kill the thing they love,<br /> + By all let this be heard,<br /> +Some do it with a bitter look,<br /> + Some with a flattering word,<br /> +The coward does it with a kiss,<br /> + The brave man with a sword!</p> +<h3><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>APPENDIX<a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">A VERSION BASED ON THE ORIGINAL +DRAFT OF THE POEM</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page63"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 63</span>I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">He</span> did not wear his +scarlet coat,<br /> + For blood and wine are red,<br /> +And blood and wine were on his hands<br /> + When they found him with the dead,<br /> +The poor dead woman whom he loved,<br /> + And murdered in her bed.</p> +<p class="poetry">He walked amongst the Trial Men<br /> + In a suit of shabby grey;<br /> +A cricket cap was on his head,<br /> + And his step seemed light and gay;<br /> +But I never saw a man who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>I never saw a man who looked<br /> + With such a wistful eye<br /> +Upon that little tent of blue<br /> + Which prisoners call the sky,<br /> +And at every drifting cloud that went<br /> + With sails of silver by.</p> +<p class="poetry">I walked, with other souls in pain,<br /> + Within another ring,<br /> +And was wondering if the man had done<br /> + A great or little thing,<br /> +When a voice behind me whispered low,<br /> + ‘<i>That fellow’s got to +swing</i>.’</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear Christ! the very prison walls<br /> + Suddenly seemed to reel,<br /> +And the sky above my head became<br /> + Like a casque of scorching steel;<br /> +And, though I was a soul in pain,<br /> + My pain I could not feel.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>I only knew what hunted thought<br /> + Quickened his step, and why<br /> +He looked upon the garish day<br /> + With such a wistful eye;<br /> +The man had killed the thing he loved,<br /> + And so he had to die.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet each man kills the thing he loves,<br /> + By each let this be heard,<br /> +Some do it with a bitter look,<br /> + Some with a flattering word,<br /> +The coward does it with a kiss,<br /> + The brave man with a sword!</p> +<p class="poetry">Some kill their love when they are young,<br /> + And some when they are old;<br /> +Some strangle with the hands of Lust,<br /> + Some with the hands of Gold:<br /> +The kindest use a knife, because<br /> + The dead so soon grow cold.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +66</span>Some love too little, some too long,<br /> + Some sell, and others buy;<br /> +Some do the deed with many tears,<br /> + And some without a sigh:<br /> +For each man kills the thing he loves,<br /> + Yet each man does not die.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not die a death of shame<br /> + On a day of dark disgrace,<br /> +Nor have a noose about his neck,<br /> + Nor a cloth upon his face,<br /> +Nor drop feet foremost through the floor<br /> + Into an empty space.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not wake at dawn to see<br /> + Dread figures throng his room,<br /> +The shivering Chaplain robed in white,<br /> + The Sheriff stern with gloom,<br /> +And the Governor all in shiny black,<br /> + With the yellow face of Doom.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>He does not rise in piteous haste<br /> + To put on convict-clothes,<br /> +While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes<br /> + Each new and nerve-twitched pose,<br /> +Fingering a watch whose little ticks<br /> + Are like horrible hammer-blows.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not know that sickening thirst<br /> + That sands one’s throat, before<br /> +The hangman with his gardener’s gloves<br /> + Slips through the padded door,<br /> +And binds one with three leathern thongs,<br /> + That the throat may thirst no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">He does not bend his head to hear<br /> + The Burial Office read,<br /> +Nor, while the terror of his soul<br /> + Tells him he is not dead,<br /> +Cross his own coffin, as he moves<br /> + Into the hideous shed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>He does not stare upon the air<br /> + Through a little roof of glass:<br /> +He does not pray with lips of clay<br /> + For his agony to pass;<br /> +Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek<br /> + The kiss of Caiaphas.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Six</span> weeks our +guardsman walked the yard,<br /> + In the suit of shabby grey:<br /> +His cricket cap was on his head,<br /> + And his step seemed light and gay,<br /> +But I never saw a man who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry">He did not wring his hands nor weep,<br /> + Nor did he peek or pine,<br /> +But he drank the air as though it held<br /> + Some healthful anodyne;<br /> +With open mouth he drank the sun<br /> + As though it had been wine!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>And I and all the souls in pain,<br /> + Who tramped the other ring,<br /> +Forgot if we ourselves had done<br /> + A great or little thing,<br /> +And watched with gaze of dull amaze<br /> + The man who had to swing.</p> +<p class="poetry">So with curious eyes and sick surmise<br /> + We watched him day by day,<br /> +And wondered if each one of us<br /> + Would end the self-same way,<br /> +For none can tell to what red Hell<br /> + His sightless soul may stray.</p> +<p class="poetry">At last the dead man walked no more<br /> + Amongst the Trial Men,<br /> +And I knew that he was standing up<br /> + In the black dock’s dreadful pen,<br /> +And that never would I see his face<br /> + In God’s sweet world again.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>Like two doomed ships that pass in storm<br /> + We had crossed each other’s way:<br /> +But we made no sign, we said no word,<br /> + We had no word to say;<br /> +For we did not meet in the holy night,<br /> + But in the shameful day.</p> +<p class="poetry">A prison wall was round us both,<br /> + Two outcast men we were:<br /> +The world had thrust us from its heart,<br /> + And God from out His care:<br /> +And the iron gin that waits for Sin<br /> + Had caught us in its snare.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Debtors’ +Yard the stones are hard,<br /> + And the dripping wall is high,<br /> +So it was there he took the air<br /> + Beneath the leaden sky,<br /> +And by each side a Warder walked,<br /> + For fear the man might die.</p> +<p class="poetry">Or else he sat with those who watched<br /> + His anguish night and day;<br /> +Who watched him when he rose to weep,<br /> + And when he crouched to pray;<br /> +Who watched him lest himself should rob<br /> + Their scaffold of its prey.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>And twice a day he smoked his pipe,<br /> + And drank his quart of beer:<br /> +His soul was resolute, and held<br /> + No hiding-place for fear;<br /> +He often said that he was glad<br /> + The hangman’s hands were near.</p> +<p class="poetry">But why he said so strange a thing<br /> + No Warder dared to ask:<br /> +For he to whom a watcher’s doom<br /> + Is given as his task,<br /> +Must set a lock upon his lips,<br /> + And make his face a mask.</p> +<p class="poetry">With slouch and swing around the ring<br /> + We trod the Fools’ Parade!<br /> +We did not care: we knew we were<br /> + The Devil’s Own Brigade:<br /> +And shaven head and feet of lead<br /> + Make a merry masquerade.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>We tore the tarry rope to shreds<br /> + With blunt and bleeding nails;<br /> +We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,<br /> + And cleaned the shining rails:<br /> +And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,<br /> + And clattered with the pails.</p> +<p class="poetry">We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,<br /> + We turned the dusty drill:<br /> +We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,<br /> + And sweated on the mill:<br /> +But in the heart of every man<br /> + Terror was lying still.</p> +<p class="poetry">So still it lay that every day<br /> + Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:<br /> +And we forgot the bitter lot<br /> + That waits for fool and knave,<br /> +Till once, as we tramped in from work,<br /> + We passed an open grave.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>Right in we went, with soul intent<br /> + On Death and Dread and Doom:<br /> +The hangman, with his little bag,<br /> + Went shuffling through the gloom:<br /> +And each man trembled as he crept<br /> + Into his numbered tomb.</p> +<p class="poetry">That night the empty corridors<br /> + Were full of forms of Fear,<br /> +And up and down the iron town<br /> + Stole feet we could not hear,<br /> +And through the bars that hide the stars<br /> + White faces seemed to peer.</p> +<p class="poetry">But there is no sleep when men must weep<br /> + Who never yet have wept:<br /> +So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—<br /> + That endless vigil kept,<br /> +And through each brain on hands of pain<br /> + Another’s terror crept.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>Alas! it is a fearful thing<br /> + To feel another’s guilt!<br /> +For, right within, the sword of Sin<br /> + Pierced to its poisoned hilt,<br /> +And as molten lead were the tears we shed<br /> + For the blood we had not spilt.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Warders with their shoes of felt<br /> + Crept by each padlocked door,<br /> +And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,<br /> + Grey figures on the floor,<br /> +And wondered why men knelt to pray<br /> + Who never prayed before.</p> +<p class="poetry">The morning wind began to moan,<br /> + But still the night went on:<br /> +Through its giant loom the web of gloom<br /> + Crept till each thread was spun:<br /> +And, as we prayed, we grew afraid<br /> + Of the Justice of the Sun.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>At last I saw the shadowed bars,<br /> + Like a lattice wrought in lead,<br /> +Move right across the whitewashed wall<br /> + That faced my three-plank bed,<br /> +And I knew that somewhere in the world<br /> + God’s dreadful dawn was red.</p> +<p class="poetry">At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,<br +/> + At seven all was still,<br /> +But the sough and swing of a mighty wing<br /> + The prison seemed to fill,<br /> +For the Lord of Death with icy breath<br /> + Had entered in to kill.</p> +<p class="poetry">He did not pass in purple pomp,<br /> + Nor ride a moon-white steed.<br /> +Three yards of cord and a sliding board<br /> + Are all the gallows’ need:<br /> +So with rope of shame the Herald came<br /> + To do the secret deed.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>We waited for the stroke of eight:<br /> + Each tongue was thick with thirst:<br /> +For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate<br /> + That makes a man accursed,<br /> +And Fate will use a running noose<br /> + For the best man and the worst.</p> +<p class="poetry">We had no other thing to do,<br /> + Save to wait for the sign to come:<br /> +So, like things of stone in a valley lone,<br /> + Quiet we sat and dumb:<br /> +But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,<br /> + Like a madman on a drum!</p> +<p class="poetry">With sudden shock the prison-clock<br /> + Smote on the shivering air,<br /> +And from all the gaol rose up a wail<br /> + Of impotent despair,<br /> +Like the sound that frightened marshes hear<br /> + From some leper in his lair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>And as one sees most fearful things<br /> + In the crystal of a dream,<br /> +We saw the greasy hempen rope<br /> + Hooked to the blackened beam,<br /> +And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare<br /> + Strangled into a scream.</p> +<p class="poetry">And all the woe that moved him so<br /> + That he gave that bitter cry,<br /> +And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,<br /> + None knew so well as I:<br /> +For he who lives more lives than one<br /> + More deaths than one must die.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page80"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 80</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> is no chapel +on the day<br /> + On which they hang a man:<br /> +The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,<br /> + Or his face is far too wan,<br /> +Or there is that written in his eyes<br /> + Which none should look upon.</p> +<p class="poetry">So they kept us close till nigh on noon,<br /> + And then they rang the bell,<br /> +And the Warders with their jingling keys<br /> + Opened each listening cell,<br /> +And down the iron stair we tramped,<br /> + Each from his separate Hell.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>Out into God’s sweet air we went,<br /> + But not in wonted way,<br /> +For this man’s face was white with fear,<br /> + And that man’s face was grey,<br /> +And I never saw sad men who looked<br /> + So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p class="poetry">I never saw sad men who looked<br /> + With such a wistful eye<br /> +Upon that little tent of blue<br /> + We prisoners called the sky,<br /> +And at every careless cloud that passed<br /> + In happy freedom by.</p> +<p class="poetry">But there were those amongst us all<br /> + Who walked with downcast head,<br /> +And knew that, had each got his due,<br /> + They should have died instead:<br /> +He had but killed a thing that lived,<br /> + Whilst they had killed the dead.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>For he who sins a second time<br /> + Wakes a dead soul to pain,<br /> +And draws it from its spotted shroud,<br /> + And makes it bleed again,<br /> +And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,<br /> + And makes it bleed in vain!</p> +<p class="poetry">Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb<br /> + With crooked arrows starred,<br /> +Silently we went round and round<br /> + The slippery asphalte yard;<br /> +Silently we went round and round,<br /> + And no man spoke a word.</p> +<p class="poetry">Silently we went round and round,<br /> + And through each hollow mind<br /> +The Memory of dreadful things<br /> + Rushed like a dreadful wind,<br /> +And Horror stalked before each man,<br /> + And Terror crept behind.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>The Warders strutted up and down,<br /> + And kept their herd of brutes,<br /> +Their uniforms were spick and span,<br /> + And they wore their Sunday suits,<br /> +But we knew the work they had been at,<br /> + By the quicklime on their boots.</p> +<p class="poetry">For where a grave had opened wide,<br /> + There was no grave at all:<br /> +Only a stretch of mud and sand<br /> + By the hideous prison-wall,<br /> +And a little heap of burning lime,<br /> + That the man should have his pall.</p> +<p class="poetry">For he has a pall, this wretched man,<br /> + Such as few men can claim:<br /> +Deep down below a prison-yard,<br /> + Naked for greater shame,<br /> +He lies, with fetters on each foot,<br /> + Wrapt in a sheet of flame!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>For three long years they will not sow<br /> + Or root or seedling there:<br /> +For three long years the unblessed spot<br /> + Will sterile be and bare,<br /> +And look upon the wondering sky<br /> + With unreproachful stare.</p> +<p class="poetry">They think a murderer’s heart would +taint<br /> + Each simple seed they sow.<br /> +It is not true! God’s kindly earth<br /> + Is kindlier than men know,<br /> +And the red rose would but blow more red,<br /> + The white rose whiter blow.</p> +<p class="poetry">Out of his mouth a red, red rose!<br /> + Out of his heart a white!<br /> +For who can say by what strange way,<br /> + Christ brings His will to light,<br /> +Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore<br /> + Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>But neither milk-white rose nor red<br /> + May bloom in prison-air;<br /> +The shard, the pebble, and the flint,<br /> + Are what they give us there:<br /> +For flowers have been known to heal<br /> + A common man’s despair.</p> +<p class="poetry">So never will wine-red rose or white,<br /> + Petal by petal, fall<br /> +On that stretch of mud and sand that lies<br /> + By the hideous prison-wall,<br /> +To tell the men who tramp the yard<br /> + That God’s Son died for all.</p> +<p class="poetry">He is at peace—this wretched +man—<br /> + At peace, or will be soon:<br /> +There is no thing to make him mad,<br /> + Nor does Terror walk at noon,<br /> +For the lampless Earth in which he lies<br /> + Has neither Sun nor Moon.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +86</span>The Chaplain would not kneel to pray<br /> + By his dishonoured grave:<br /> +Nor mark it with that blessed Cross<br /> + That Christ for sinners gave,<br /> +Because the man was one of those<br /> + Whom Christ came down to save.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet all is well; he has but passed<br /> + To Life’s appointed bourne:<br /> +And alien tears will fill for him<br /> + Pity’s long-broken urn,<br /> +For his mourners will be outcast men,<br /> + And outcasts always mourn.</p> +<h2><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>POEMS<a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>AVE IMPERATRIX</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Set</span> in this stormy +Northern sea,<br /> + Queen of these restless fields of tide,<br /> +England! what shall men say of thee,<br /> + Before whose feet the worlds divide?</p> +<p class="poetry">The earth, a brittle globe of glass,<br /> + Lies in the hollow of thy hand,<br /> +And through its heart of crystal pass,<br /> + Like shadows through a twilight land,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>The spears of crimson-suited war,<br /> + The long white-crested waves of fight,<br /> +And all the deadly fires which are<br /> + The torches of the lords of Night.</p> +<p class="poetry">The yellow leopards, strained and lean,<br /> + The treacherous Russian knows so well,<br /> +With gaping blackened jaws are seen<br /> + Leap through the hail of screaming shell.</p> +<p class="poetry">The strong sea-lion of England’s wars<br +/> + Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,<br /> +To battle with the storm that mars<br /> + The stars of England’s chivalry.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>The brazen-throated clarion blows<br /> + Across the Pathan’s reedy fen,<br /> +And the high steeps of Indian snows<br /> + Shake to the tread of armèd men.</p> +<p class="poetry">And many an Afghan chief, who lies<br /> + Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,<br /> +Clutches his sword in fierce surmise<br /> + When on the mountain-side he sees</p> +<p class="poetry">The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes<br /> + To tell how he hath heard afar<br /> +The measured roll of English drums<br /> + Beat at the gates of Kandahar.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>For southern wind and east wind meet<br /> + Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,<br /> +England with bare and bloody feet<br /> + Climbs the steep road of wide empire.</p> +<p class="poetry">O lonely Himalayan height,<br /> + Grey pillar of the Indian sky,<br /> +Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight<br /> + Our wingèd dogs of Victory?</p> +<p class="poetry">The almond-groves of Samarcand,<br /> + Bokhara, where red lilies blow,<br /> +And Oxus, by whose yellow sand<br /> + The grave white-turbaned merchants go:</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>And on from thence to Ispahan,<br /> + The gilded garden of the sun,<br /> +Whence the long dusty caravan<br /> + Brings cedar wood and vermilion;</p> +<p class="poetry">And that dread city of Cabool<br /> + Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet,<br +/> +Whose marble tanks are ever full<br /> + With water for the noonday heat:</p> +<p class="poetry">Where through the narrow straight Bazaar<br /> + A little maid Circassian<br /> +Is led, a present from the Czar<br /> + Unto some old and bearded Khan,—</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>Here have our wild war-eagles flown,<br /> + And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;<br /> +But the sad dove, that sits alone<br /> + In England—she hath no delight.</p> +<p class="poetry">In vain the laughing girl will lean<br /> + To greet her love with love-lit eyes:<br /> +Down in some treacherous black ravine,<br /> + Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.</p> +<p class="poetry">And many a moon and sun will see<br /> + The lingering wistful children wait<br /> +To climb upon their father’s knee;<br /> + And in each house made desolate</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>Pale women who have lost their lord<br /> + Will kiss the relics of the slain—<br /> +Some tarnished epaulette—some sword—<br /> + Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">For not in quiet English fields<br /> + Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,<br /> +Where we might deck their broken shields<br /> + With all the flowers the dead love best.</p> +<p class="poetry">For some are by the Delhi walls,<br /> + And many in the Afghan land,<br /> +And many where the Ganges falls<br /> + Through seven mouths of shifting sand.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>And some in Russian waters lie,<br /> + And others in the seas which are<br /> +The portals to the East, or by<br /> + The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.</p> +<p class="poetry">O wandering graves! O restless sleep!<br +/> + O silence of the sunless day!<br /> +O still ravine! O stormy deep!<br /> + Give up your prey! Give up your prey!</p> +<p class="poetry">And thou whose wounds are never healed,<br /> + Whose weary race is never won,<br /> +O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield<br /> + For every inch of ground a son?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,<br /> + Change thy glad song to song of pain;<br /> +Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,<br /> + And will not yield them back again.</p> +<p class="poetry">Wave and wild wind and foreign shore<br /> + Possess the flower of English land—<br /> +Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,<br /> + Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.</p> +<p class="poetry">What profit now that we have bound<br /> + The whole round world with nets of gold,<br /> +If hidden in our heart is found<br /> + The care that groweth never old?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>What profit that our galleys ride,<br /> + Pine-forest-like, on every main?<br /> +Ruin and wreck are at our side,<br /> + Grim warders of the House of Pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?<br +/> + Where is our English chivalry?<br /> +Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,<br /> + And sobbing waves their threnody.</p> +<p class="poetry">O loved ones lying far away,<br /> + What word of love can dead lips send!<br /> +O wasted dust! O senseless clay!<br /> + Is this the end! is this the end!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead<br /> + To vex their solemn slumber so;<br /> +Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,<br /> + Up the steep road must England go,</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet when this fiery web is spun,<br /> + Her watchmen shall descry from far<br /> +The young Republic like a sun<br /> + Rise from these crimson seas of war.</p> +<h2><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>TO +MY WIFE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS</span></h2> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">can</span> write no +stately proem<br /> + As a prelude to my lay;<br /> +From a poet to a poem<br /> + I would dare to say.</p> +<p class="poetry">For if of these fallen petals<br /> + One to you seem fair,<br /> +Love will waft it till it settles<br /> + On your hair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>And when wind and winter harden<br /> + All the loveless land,<br /> +It will whisper of the garden,<br /> + You will understand.</p> +<h2><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>MAGDALEN WALKS</h2> +<p>[<i>After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity +College</i>, <i>Dublin</i>, <i>in 1874</i>, <i>Oscar Wilde +proceeded to Oxford</i>, <i>where he obtained a demyship at +Magdalen College</i>. <i>He is the only real poet on the +books of that institution</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> little white +clouds are racing over the sky,<br /> + And the fields are strewn with the gold of the +flower of March,<br /> + The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled +larch<br /> +Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning +breeze,<br /> + The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown +new-furrowed earth,<br /> + The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s +glad birth,<br /> +Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.</p> +<p class="poetry">And all the woods are alive with the murmur and +sound of Spring,<br /> + And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing +briar,<br /> + <a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire<br /> +Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering +some tale of love<br /> + Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle +of green,<br /> + And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit +with the iris sheen<br /> +Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a +dove.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow +there,<br /> + Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of +dew,<br /> + And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!<br /> +The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.</p> +<h2><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>THEOCRITUS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A VILLANELLE</span></h2> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">singer</span> of +Persephone!<br /> + In the dim meadows desolate<br /> +Dost thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p class="poetry">Still through the ivy flits the bee<br /> + Where Amaryllis lies in state;<br /> +O Singer of Persephone!</p> +<p class="poetry">Simætha calls on Hecate<br /> + And hears the wild dogs at the gate;<br /> +Dost thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>Still by the light and laughing sea<br /> + Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;<br /> +O Singer of Persephone!</p> +<p class="poetry">And still in boyish rivalry<br /> + Young Daphnis challenges his mate;<br /> +Dost thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p class="poetry">Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,<br /> + For thee the jocund shepherds wait;<br /> +O Singer of Persephone!<br /> +Dost thou remember Sicily?</p> +<h2><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>GREECE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> sea was sapphire +coloured, and the sky<br /> +Burned like a heated opal through the air;<br /> + We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair<br /> +For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.<br /> +From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye<br /> + Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,<br /> + Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,<br +/> +<a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>And all +the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.<br /> +The flapping of the sail against the mast,<br /> + The ripple of the water on the side,<br /> + The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,<br +/> +The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn,<br /> + And a red sun upon the seas to ride,<br /> + I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Katakolo</span>.</p> +<h2><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +110</span>PORTIA<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO ELLEN TERRY</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(<i>Written at the Lyceum +Theatre</i>)</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">marvel</span> not +Bassanio was so bold<br /> + To peril all he had upon the lead,<br /> + Or that proud Aragon bent low his head<br /> +Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:<br /> +For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold<br /> + Which is more golden than the golden sun<br /> + No woman Veronesé looked upon<br /> +Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.<br /> +<a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>Yet +fairer when with wisdom as your shield<br /> + The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,<br +/> +And would not let the laws of Venice yield<br /> + Antonio’s heart to that accursèd +Jew—<br /> + O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:<br /> +I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.</p> +<h2><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>FABIEN DEI FRANCHI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO MY FRIEND HENRY IRVING</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> silent room, the +heavy creeping shade,<br /> + The dead that travel fast, the opening door,<br /> + The murdered brother rising through the floor,<br /> +The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,<br /> +And then the lonely duel in the glade,<br /> + <a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,<br /> + Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is +o’er,—<br /> +These things are well enough,—but thou wert made<br /> + For more august creation! frenzied Lear<br /> + Should at thy bidding wander on the heath<br /> + With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo<br /> +For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear<br /> +Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath—<br +/> + Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to +blow!</p> +<h2><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>PHÈDRE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO SARAH BERNHARDT</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">How</span> vain and dull +this common world must seem<br /> + To such a One as thou, who should’st have +talked<br /> +At Florence with Mirandola, or walked<br /> +Through the cool olives of the Academe:<br /> +Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream<br +/> + For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have +played<br /> + <a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>With the white girls in that Phæacian glade<br /> +Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay<br /> + Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again<br /> + Back to this common world so dull and vain,<br /> +For thou wert weary of the sunless day,<br /> + The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,<br /> + The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.</p> +<h2><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>SONNET</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG +IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Nay</span>, Lord, not thus! +white lilies in the spring,<br /> +Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,<br /> + Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love<br /> +Than terrors of red flame and thundering.<br /> +The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:<br /> + A bird at evening flying to its nest<br /> + Tells me of One who had no place of rest:<br /> +I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.<br /> +<a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>Come +rather on some autumn afternoon,<br /> + When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,<br +/> +And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,<br /> +Come when the splendid fulness of the moon<br /> + Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,<br /> + And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.</p> +<h2><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>AVE +MARIA GRATIA PLENA</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Was</span> this His +coming! I had hoped to see<br /> + A scene of wondrous glory, as was told<br /> + Of some great God who in a rain of gold<br /> +Broke open bars and fell on Danae:<br /> +Or a dread vision as when Semele<br /> + Sickening for love and unappeased desire<br /> + Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the +fire<br /> +<a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>Caught +her brown limbs and slew her utterly:<br /> +With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,<br /> + And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand<br /> + Before this supreme mystery of Love:<br /> +Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,<br /> + An angel with a lily in his hand,<br /> + And over both the white wings of a Dove.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Florence</span>.</p> +<h2><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Albeit</span> nurtured in +democracy,<br /> + And liking best that state republican<br /> + Where every man is Kinglike and no man<br /> +Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see,<br /> +Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,<br /> + Better the rule of One, whom all obey,<br /> + Than to let clamorous demagogues betray<br /> +Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.<br /> +<a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane<br /> + Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street<br /> + For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign<br +/> +Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,<br /> + Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,<br /> + Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.</p> +<h2><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span>ROSES AND RUE</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(To L. L.)</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Could</span> we dig up this +long-buried treasure,<br /> + Were it worth the pleasure,<br /> +We never could learn love’s song,<br /> + We are parted too long.</p> +<p class="poetry">Could the passionate past that is fled<br /> + Call back its dead,<br /> +Could we live it all over again,<br /> + Were it worth the pain!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span>I remember we used to meet<br /> + By an ivied seat,<br /> +And you warbled each pretty word<br /> + With the air of a bird;</p> +<p class="poetry">And your voice had a quaver in it,<br /> + Just like a linnet,<br /> +And shook, as the blackbird’s throat<br /> + With its last big note;</p> +<p class="poetry">And your eyes, they were green and grey<br /> + Like an April day,<br /> +But lit into amethyst<br /> + When I stooped and kissed;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span>And your mouth, it would never smile<br /> + For a long, long while,<br /> +Then it rippled all over with laughter<br /> + Five minutes after.</p> +<p class="poetry">You were always afraid of a shower,<br /> + Just like a flower:<br /> +I remember you started and ran<br /> + When the rain began.</p> +<p class="poetry">I remember I never could catch you,<br /> + For no one could match you,<br /> +You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,<br /> + Little wings to your feet.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>I remember your hair—did I tie it?<br /> + For it always ran riot—<br /> +Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:<br /> + These things are old.</p> +<p class="poetry">I remember so well the room,<br /> + And the lilac bloom<br /> +That beat at the dripping pane<br /> + In the warm June rain;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the colour of your gown,<br /> + It was amber-brown,<br /> +And two yellow satin bows<br /> + From your shoulders rose.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>And the handkerchief of French lace<br /> + Which you held to your face—<br /> +Had a small tear left a stain?<br /> + Or was it the rain?</p> +<p class="poetry">On your hand as it waved adieu<br /> + There were veins of blue;<br /> +In your voice as it said good-bye<br /> + Was a petulant cry,</p> +<p class="poetry">‘You have only wasted your +life.’<br /> + (Ah, that was the knife!)<br /> +When I rushed through the garden gate<br /> + It was all too late.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span>Could we live it over again,<br /> + Were it worth the pain,<br /> +Could the passionate past that is fled<br /> + Call back its dead!</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, if my heart must break,<br /> + Dear love, for your sake,<br /> +It will break in music, I know,<br /> + Poets’ hearts break so.</p> +<p class="poetry">But strange that I was not told<br /> + That the brain can hold<br /> +In a tiny ivory cell<br /> + God’s heaven and hell.</p> +<h2><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>FROM +‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’</h2> +<p>[<i>In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism +in the nineteenth century</i>. <i>He hails Keats and +Shelley and some of the poets and artists who were his +contemporaries</i>, <i>although his seniors</i>, <i>as the +torch-bearers of the intellectual life</i>. <i>Among these +are Swinburne</i>, <i>William Morris</i>, <i>Rossetti</i>, <i>and +Brune-Jones</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Nay</span>, when Keats died +the Muses still had left<br /> + One silver voice to sing his threnody, <a +name="citation128"></a><a href="#footnote128" +class="citation">[128]</a><br /> +But ah! too soon of it we were bereft<br /> + When on that riven night and stormy sea<br /> +<a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>Panthea +claimed her singer as her own,<br /> +And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk +alone,</p> +<p class="poetry">Save for that fiery heart, that morning star <a +name="citation129"></a><a href="#footnote129" +class="citation">[129]</a><br /> + Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye<br /> +Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war<br /> + The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy<br /> +Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring<br /> +The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to +sing,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span>And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,<br /> + And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot<br /> +In passionless and fierce virginity<br /> + Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute<br +/> +Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,<br /> +And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.</p> +<p class="poetry">And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,<br +/> + And sung the Galilæan’s requiem,<br /> +That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine<br /> + He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him<br /> +<a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>Have +found their last, most ardent worshipper,<br /> +And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.</p> +<p class="poetry">Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,<br /> + It is not quenched the torch of poesy,<br /> +The star that shook above the Eastern hill<br /> + Holds unassailed its argent armoury<br /> +From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—<br /> +O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,<br +/> + Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,<br /> +With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled<br /> + The weary soul of man in troublous need,<br /> +And from the far and flowerless fields of ice<br /> +Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.</p> +<p class="poetry">We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s +bride,<br /> + Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,<br /> +How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,<br /> + And what enchantment held the king in thrall<br /> +<a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>When +lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers<br /> +That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer +hours,</p> +<p class="poetry">Long listless summer hours when the noon<br /> + Being enamoured of a damask rose<br /> +Forgets to journey westward, till the moon<br /> + The pale usurper of its tribute grows<br /> +From a thin sickle to a silver shield<br /> +And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy +field</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +134</span>Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,<br /> + At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come<br /> +Almost before the blackbird finds a mate<br /> + And overstay the swallow, and the hum<br /> +Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,<br /> +Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,</p> +<p class="poetry">And through their unreal woes and mimic pain<br +/> + Wept for myself, and so was purified,<br /> +And in their simple mirth grew glad again;<br /> + For as I sailed upon that pictured tide<br /> +<a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>The +strength and splendour of the storm was mine<br /> +Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;</p> +<p class="poetry">The little laugh of water falling down<br /> + Is not so musical, the clammy gold<br /> +Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town<br /> + Has less of sweetness in it, and the old<br /> +Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady<br /> +Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!<br /> + Although the cheating merchants of the mart<br /> +With iron roads profane our lovely isle,<br /> + And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,<br /> +Ay! though the crowded factories beget<br /> +The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!</p> +<p class="poetry">For One at least there is,—He bears his +name<br /> + From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—<a +name="citation136"></a><a href="#footnote136" +class="citation">[136]</a><br /> +Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame<br /> + <a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>To light thine altar; He <a name="citation137"></a><a +href="#footnote137" class="citation">[137]</a> too loves thee +well,<br /> +Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,<br /> +And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,</p> +<p class="poetry">Loves thee so well, that all the World for +him<br /> + A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,<br /> +And Sorrow take a purple diadem,<br /> + Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair<br /> +Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be<br /> +Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>Which Painters hold, and such the heritage<br /> + This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,<br /> +Being a better mirror of his age<br /> + In all his pity, love, and weariness,<br /> +Than those who can but copy common things,<br /> +And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.</p> +<p class="poetry">But they are few, and all romance has flown,<br +/> + And men can prophesy about the sun,<br /> +And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,<br /> + Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,<br /> +<a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>How from +each tree its weeping nymph has fled,<br /> +And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her +head.</p> +<h2><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>THE +HARLOT’S HOUSE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> caught the tread +of dancing feet,<br /> +We loitered down the moonlit street,<br /> +And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.</p> +<p class="poetry">Inside, above the din and fray,<br /> +We heard the loud musicians play<br /> +The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.</p> +<p class="poetry">Like strange mechanical grotesques,<br /> +Making fantastic arabesques,<br /> +The shadows raced across the blind.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>We watched the ghostly dancers spin<br /> +To sound of horn and violin,<br /> +Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.</p> +<p class="poetry">Like wire-pulled automatons,<br /> +Slim silhouetted skeletons<br /> +Went sidling through the slow quadrille,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then took each other by the hand,<br /> +And danced a stately saraband;<br /> +Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.</p> +<p class="poetry">Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed<br /> +A phantom lover to her breast,<br /> +Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>Sometimes a horrible marionette<br /> +Came out, and smoked its cigarette<br /> +Upon the steps like a live thing.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then, turning to my love, I said,<br /> +‘The dead are dancing with the dead,<br /> +The dust is whirling with the dust.’</p> +<p class="poetry">But she—she heard the violin,<br /> +And left my side, and entered in:<br /> +Love passed into the house of lust.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then suddenly the tune went false,<br /> +The dancers wearied of the waltz,<br /> +The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span>And down the long and silent street,<br /> +The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,<br /> +Crept like a frightened girl.</p> +<h2><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>FROM +‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">This</span> English Thames +is holier far than Rome,<br /> + Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea<br /> +Breaking across the woodland, with the foam<br /> + Of meadow-sweet and white anemone<br /> +To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there<br /> +Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take<br /> + Yon creamy lily for their pavilion<br /> +Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake<br /> + A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,<br /> +His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old<br /> +Bishop in <i>partibus</i>! look at those gaudy scales all green +and gold.</p> +<p class="poetry">The wind the restless prisoner of the trees<br +/> + Does well for Palæstrina, one would say<br /> +The mighty master’s hands were on the keys<br /> + Of the Maria organ, which they play<br /> +<a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>When +early on some sapphire Easter morn<br /> +In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne</p> +<p class="poetry">From his dark House out to the Balcony<br /> + Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,<br /> +Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy<br /> + To toss their silver lances in the air,<br /> +And stretching out weak hands to East and West<br /> +In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations +rest.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>Is not yon lingering orange after-glow<br /> + That stays to vex the moon more fair than all<br /> +Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago<br /> + I knelt before some crimson Cardinal<br /> +Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,<br /> +And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as +fine.</p> +<p class="poetry">The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous<br +/> + With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring<br /> +<a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>Through +this cool evening than the odorous<br /> + Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,<br +/> +When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,<br /> +And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and +vine.</p> +<p class="poetry">Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Mass<br /> + Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird<br /> +Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass<br /> + I see that throbbing throat which once I heard<br /> +<a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>On +starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,<br /> +Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.</p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves<br +/> + At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,<br /> +And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves<br /> + Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe<br /> +To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait<br /> +Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard +gate.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,<br /> + And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,<br +/> +And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees<br /> + That round and round the linden blossoms play;<br /> +And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,<br /> +And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick +wall,</p> +<p class="poetry">And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring<br +/> + While the last violet loiters by the well,<br /> +<a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>And +sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing<br /> + The song of Linus through a sunny dell<br /> +Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold<br /> +And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled +fold.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p class="poetry">It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,<br /> + No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,<br /> +The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,<br /> + And from the copse left desolate and bare<br /> +Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,<br /> +Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>So sad, that one might think a human heart<br /> + Brake in each separate note, a quality<br /> +Which music sometimes has, being the Art<br /> + Which is most nigh to tears and memory;<br /> +Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?<br /> +Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,</p> +<p class="poetry">Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,<br +/> + No woven web of bloody heraldries,<br /> +But mossy dells for roving comrades made,<br /> + Warm valleys where the tired student lies<br /> +<a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>With +half-shut book, and many a winding walk<br /> +Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.</p> +<p class="poetry">The harmless rabbit gambols with its young<br +/> + Across the trampled towing-path, where late<br /> +A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng<br /> + Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;<br +/> +The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,<br /> +Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +154</span>Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out<br /> + Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating +flock<br /> +Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout<br /> + Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,<br /> +And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,<br /> +And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the +hill.</p> +<p class="poetry">The heron passes homeward to the mere,<br /> + The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,<br +/> +<a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>Gold +world by world the silent stars appear,<br /> + And like a blossom blown before the breeze<br /> +A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,<br /> +Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.</p> +<p class="poetry">She does not heed thee, wherefore should she +heed,<br /> + She knows Endymion is not far away;<br /> +’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed<br /> + Which has no message of its own to play,<br /> +<a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>So pipes +another’s bidding, it is I,<br /> +Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite +trill<br /> + About the sombre woodland seems to cling<br /> +Dying in music, else the air is still,<br /> + So still that one might hear the bat’s small +wing<br /> +Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell<br /> +Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming +cell.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>And far away across the lengthening wold,<br /> + Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,<br /> +Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold<br /> + Marks the long High Street of the little town,<br /> +And warns me to return; I must not wait,<br /> +Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ +Church gate.</p> +<h2><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span>FLOWER OF LOVE</h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Sweet</span>, I blame you +not, for mine the fault<br /> +was, had I not been made of common clay<br /> +I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed<br /> +yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.</p> +<p class="poetry">From the wildness of my wasted passion I had<br +/> +struck a better, clearer song,<br /> +Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled<br /> +with some Hydra-headed wrong.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>Had my lips been smitten into music by the<br /> +kisses that but made them bleed,<br /> +You had walked with Bice and the angels on<br /> +that verdant and enamelled mead.</p> +<p class="poetry">I had trod the road which Dante treading saw<br +/> +the suns of seven circles shine,<br /> +Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,<br /> +as they opened to the Florentine.</p> +<p class="poetry">And the mighty nations would have crowned<br /> +me, who am crownless now and without name,<br /> +<a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>And some +orient dawn had found me kneeling<br /> +on the threshold of the House of Fame.</p> +<p class="poetry">I had sat within that marble circle where +the<br /> +oldest bard is as the young,<br /> +And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the<br /> +lyre’s strings are ever strung.</p> +<p class="poetry">Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from +out<br /> +the poppy-seeded wine,<br /> +With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead,<br /> +clasped the hand of noble love in mine.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span>And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms<br /> +brush the burnished bosom of the dove,<br /> +Two young lovers lying in an orchard would<br /> +have read the story of our love;</p> +<p class="poetry">Would have read the legend of my passion,<br /> +known the bitter secret of my heart,<br /> +Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as<br /> +we two are fated now to part.</p> +<p class="poetry">For the crimson flower of our life is eaten +by<br /> +the cankerworm of truth,<br /> +And no hand can gather up the fallen withered<br /> +petals of the rose of youth.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah!<br /> +what else had I a boy to do,—<br /> +For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the<br /> +silent-footed years pursue.</p> +<p class="poetry">Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and<br +/> +when once the storm of youth is past,<br /> +Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death<br /> +the silent pilot comes at last.</p> +<p class="poetry">And within the grave there is no pleasure,<br +/> +for the blindworm battens on the root,<br /> +And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree<br /> +of Passion bears no fruit.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +163</span>Ah! what else had I to do but love you?<br /> +God’s own mother was less dear to me,<br /> +And less dear the Cytheræan rising like an<br /> +argent lily from the sea.</p> +<p class="poetry">I have made my choice, have lived my<br /> +poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days,<br /> +I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better<br /> +than the poet’s crown of bays.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128" +class="footnote">[128]</a> Shelley.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129"></a><a href="#citation129" +class="footnote">[129]</a> Swinburne.</p> +<p><a name="footnote136"></a><a href="#citation136" +class="footnote">[136]</a> Rossetti.</p> +<p><a name="footnote137"></a><a href="#citation137" +class="footnote">[137]</a> Burne-Jones.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1141-h.htm or 1141-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/1141 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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