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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1141-0.txt b/1141-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c04a1b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/1141-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2681 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + SELECTED POEMS + OF OSCAR WILDE + + + INCLUDING + + THE BALLAD OF + READING GAOL + + * * * * * + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + * * * * * + +_This Volume was First _August 17th_, _1911_ +Published_ +_Second Edition_ _August_ _1911_ +_Third Edition_ _September_ _1911_ + + * * * * * + +‘_The Ballad of Reading Goal_’ _was first published by Leonard Smithers_, +_February 13th_, _1898_. _Second Edition_, _February_, _1898_. _Third +Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fourth Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fifth +Edition_, _March 1898_. _Sixth Edition_, _1898_. _Seventh Edition_, +_1899_. _Eighth and Cheaper Edition_ (_1s. net_). _Methuen & Co._, +_Ltd._, _August 1910_. _Ninth Edition_, _September 1910_. ‘_The Ballad +of Reading Goal_’ _was published anonymously under the signature of C. 3. +3_. _The author’s name first appeared on the title-page of the Seventh +Edition_. _It was included in the Collected Edition of the author’s +Poems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and 1909_. + + * * * * * + +_Wilde’s Poems were first published in volume form in 1881_, _and were +reprinted four times before the end of 1882_. _A new edition with +additional poems_, _including Ravenna_, _The Sphinx_, _and The Ballad of +Reading Gaol_, _was first published_ (_limited issues on hand-made paper +and Japanese vellum_) _by Methuen & Co. in March 1908_. _A further +edition_ (_making the seventh_) _with some omissions from the issue of +1908_, _but including two new poems_, _was published in September 1909_. +_Eighth Edition_, _November 1909_. _Ninth Edition_, _December 1909_. + + + + +PREFACE + + +IT 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 _Ballad of Reading Gaol_, 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 NINE editions. Readers will be able to make for +themselves the obvious and striking contrasts 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. + + ROBERT ROSS + +REFORM CLUB, + _April_ 5, 1911. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +PREFACE v +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (_Complete Version_) 1 +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (_Shorter Version_) 61 +AVE IMPERATRIX 89 +TO MY WIFE (WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS) 100 +MAGDALEN WALKS 102 +THEOCRITUS—A VILLANELLE 106 +SONNETS— + GREECE 108 + PORTIA (TO ELLEN TERRY) 110 + FABIEN DEI FRANCHI (TO HENRY IRVING) 112 + PHÈDRE (TO SARAH BERNHARDT) 114 + ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE 116 + SISTINE CHAPEL + AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA 118 + LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES 120 + ROSES AND RUE 122 + FROM ‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’ 128 + THE HARLOT’S HOUSE 140 + FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’ 144 + FLOWER OF LOVE 158 + + + + +NOTE + + +AT 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. + + ROBERT ROSS + + * * * * * + + IN MEMORIAM + C. T. W. + Sometimes trooper of + The Royal Horse Guards + Obiit H.M. Prison + Reading, Berkshire + July 7th, 1896 + + + + +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + + I + + HE did not wear his scarlet coat, + For blood and wine are red, + And blood and wine were on his hands + When they found him with the dead, + The poor dead woman whom he loved, + And murdered in her bed. + + He walked amongst the Trial Men + In a suit of shabby grey; + A cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay; + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw a man who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + Which prisoners call the sky, + And at every drifting cloud that went + With sails of silver by. + + I walked, with other souls in pain, + Within another ring, + And was wondering if the man had done + A great or little thing, + When a voice behind me whispered low, + ‘_That fellow’s got to swing_.’ + + Dear Christ! the very prison walls + Suddenly seemed to reel, + And the sky above my head became + Like a casque of scorching steel; + And, though I was a soul in pain, + My pain I could not feel. + + I only knew what hunted thought + Quickened his step, and why + He looked upon the garish day + With such a wistful eye; + The man had killed the thing he loved, + And so he had to die. + + Yet each man kills the thing he loves, + By each let this be heard, + Some do it with a bitter look, + Some with a flattering word, + The coward does it with a kiss, + The brave man with a sword! + + Some kill their love when they are young, + And some when they are old; + Some strangle with the hands of Lust, + Some with the hands of Gold: + The kindest use a knife, because + The dead so soon grow cold. + + Some love too little, some too long, + Some sell, and others buy; + Some do the deed with many tears, + And some without a sigh: + For each man kills the thing he loves, + Yet each man does not die. + + He does not die a death of shame + On a day of dark disgrace, + Nor have a noose about his neck, + Nor a cloth upon his face, + Nor drop feet foremost through the floor + Into an empty space. + + He does not sit with silent men + Who watch him night and day; + Who watch him when he tries to weep, + And when he tries to pray; + Who watch him lest himself should rob + The prison of its prey. + + He does not wake at dawn to see + Dread figures throng his room, + The shivering Chaplain robed in white, + The Sheriff stern with gloom, + And the Governor all in shiny black, + With the yellow face of Doom. + + He does not rise in piteous haste + To put on convict-clothes, + While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes + Each new and nerve-twitched pose, + Fingering a watch whose little ticks + Are like horrible hammer-blows. + + He does not know that sickening thirst + That sands one’s throat, before + The hangman with his gardener’s gloves + Slips through the padded door, + And binds one with three leathern thongs, + That the throat may thirst no more. + + He does not bend his head to hear + The Burial Office read, + Nor, while the terror of his soul + Tells him he is not dead, + Cross his own coffin, as he moves + Into the hideous shed. + + He does not stare upon the air + Through a little roof of glass: + He does not pray with lips of clay + For his agony to pass; + Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek + The kiss of Caiaphas. + + II + + SIX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, + In the suit of shabby grey: + His cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay, + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw a man who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + Which prisoners call the sky, + And at every wandering cloud that trailed + Its ravelled fleeces by. + + He did not wring his hands, as do + Those witless men who dare + To try to rear the changeling Hope + In the cave of black Despair: + He only looked upon the sun, + And drank the morning air. + + He did not wring his hands nor weep, + Nor did he peek or pine, + But he drank the air as though it held + Some healthful anodyne; + With open mouth he drank the sun + As though it had been wine! + + And I and all the souls in pain, + Who tramped the other ring, + Forgot if we ourselves had done + A great or little thing, + And watched with gaze of dull amaze + The man who had to swing. + + And strange it was to see him pass + With a step so light and gay, + And strange it was to see him look + So wistfully at the day, + And strange it was to think that he + Had such a debt to pay. + + For oak and elm have pleasant leaves + That in the springtime shoot: + But grim to see is the gallows-tree, + With its adder-bitten root, + And, green or dry, a man must die + Before it bears its fruit! + + The loftiest place is that seat of grace + For which all worldlings try: + But who would stand in hempen band + Upon a scaffold high, + And through a murderer’s collar take + His last look at the sky? + + It is sweet to dance to violins + When Love and Life are fair: + To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes + Is delicate and rare: + But it is not sweet with nimble feet + To dance upon the air! + + So with curious eyes and sick surmise + We watched him day by day, + And wondered if each one of us + Would end the self-same way, + For none can tell to what red Hell + His sightless soul may stray. + + At last the dead man walked no more + Amongst the Trial Men, + And I knew that he was standing up + In the black dock’s dreadful pen, + And that never would I see his face + In God’s sweet world again. + + Like two doomed ships that pass in storm + We had crossed each other’s way: + But we made no sign, we said no word, + We had no word to say; + For we did not meet in the holy night, + But in the shameful day. + + A prison wall was round us both, + Two outcast men we were: + The world had thrust us from its heart, + And God from out His care: + And the iron gin that waits for Sin + Had caught us in its snare. + + III + + IN Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, + And the dripping wall is high, + So it was there he took the air + Beneath the leaden sky, + And by each side a Warder walked, + For fear the man might die. + + Or else he sat with those who watched + His anguish night and day; + Who watched him when he rose to weep, + And when he crouched to pray; + Who watched him lest himself should rob + Their scaffold of its prey. + + The Governor was strong upon + The Regulations Act: + The Doctor said that Death was but + A scientific fact: + And twice a day the Chaplain called, + And left a little tract. + + And twice a day he smoked his pipe, + And drank his quart of beer: + His soul was resolute, and held + No hiding-place for fear; + He often said that he was glad + The hangman’s hands were near. + + But why he said so strange a thing + No Warder dared to ask: + For he to whom a watcher’s doom + Is given as his task, + Must set a lock upon his lips, + And make his face a mask. + + Or else he might be moved, and try + To comfort or console: + And what should Human Pity do + Pent up in Murderers’ Hole? + What word of grace in such a place + Could help a brother’s soul? + + With slouch and swing around the ring + We trod the Fools’ Parade! + We did not care: we knew we were + The Devil’s Own Brigade: + And shaven head and feet of lead + Make a merry masquerade. + + We tore the tarry rope to shreds + With blunt and bleeding nails; + We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, + And cleaned the shining rails: + And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, + And clattered with the pails. + + We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, + We turned the dusty drill: + We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, + And sweated on the mill: + But in the heart of every man + Terror was lying still. + + So still it lay that every day + Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: + And we forgot the bitter lot + That waits for fool and knave, + Till once, as we tramped in from work, + We passed an open grave. + + With yawning mouth the yellow hole + Gaped for a living thing; + The very mud cried out for blood + To the thirsty asphalte ring: + And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair + Some prisoner had to swing. + + Right in we went, with soul intent + On Death and Dread and Doom: + The hangman, with his little bag, + Went shuffling through the gloom: + And each man trembled as he crept + Into his numbered tomb. + + That night the empty corridors + Were full of forms of Fear, + And up and down the iron town + Stole feet we could not hear, + And through the bars that hide the stars + White faces seemed to peer. + + He lay as one who lies and dreams + In a pleasant meadow-land, + The watchers watched him as he slept, + And could not understand + How one could sleep so sweet a sleep + With a hangman close at hand. + + But there is no sleep when men must weep + Who never yet have wept: + So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— + That endless vigil kept, + And through each brain on hands of pain + Another’s terror crept. + + Alas! it is a fearful thing + To feel another’s guilt! + For, right within, the sword of Sin + Pierced to its poisoned hilt, + And as molten lead were the tears we shed + For the blood we had not spilt. + + The Warders with their shoes of felt + Crept by each padlocked door, + And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, + Grey figures on the floor, + And wondered why men knelt to pray + Who never prayed before. + + All through the night we knelt and prayed, + Mad mourners of a corse! + The troubled plumes of midnight were + The plumes upon a hearse: + And bitter wine upon a sponge + Was the savour of Remorse. + + The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, + But never came the day: + And crooked shapes of Terror crouched, + In the corners where we lay: + And each evil sprite that walks by night + Before us seemed to play. + + They glided past, they glided fast, + Like travellers through a mist: + They mocked the moon in a rigadoon + Of delicate turn and twist, + And with formal pace and loathsome grace + The phantoms kept their tryst. + + With mop and mow, we saw them go, + Slim shadows hand in hand: + About, about, in ghostly rout + They trod a saraband: + And the damned grotesques made arabesques, + Like the wind upon the sand! + + With the pirouettes of marionettes, + They tripped on pointed tread: + But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, + As their grisly masque they led, + And loud they sang, and long they sang, + For they sang to wake the dead. + + ‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide, + But fettered limbs go lame! + And once, or twice, to throw the dice + Is a gentlemanly game, + But he does not win who plays with Sin + In the secret House of Shame.’ + + No things of air these antics were, + That frolicked with such glee: + To men whose lives were held in gyves, + And whose feet might not go free, + Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, + Most terrible to see. + + Around, around, they waltzed and wound; + Some wheeled in smirking pairs; + With the mincing step of a demirep + Some sidled up the stairs: + And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, + Each helped us at our prayers. + + The morning wind began to moan, + But still the night went on: + Through its giant loom the web of gloom + Crept till each thread was spun: + And, as we prayed, we grew afraid + Of the Justice of the Sun. + + The moaning wind went wandering round + The weeping prison-wall: + Till like a wheel of turning steel + We felt the minutes crawl: + O moaning wind! what had we done + To have such a seneschal? + + At last I saw the shadowed bars, + Like a lattice wrought in lead, + Move right across the whitewashed wall + That faced my three-plank bed, + And I knew that somewhere in the world + God’s dreadful dawn was red. + + At six o’clock we cleaned our cells, + At seven all was still, + But the sough and swing of a mighty wing + The prison seemed to fill, + For the Lord of Death with icy breath + Had entered in to kill. + + He did not pass in purple pomp, + Nor ride a moon-white steed. + Three yards of cord and a sliding board + Are all the gallows’ need: + So with rope of shame the Herald came + To do the secret deed. + + We were as men who through a fen + Of filthy darkness grope: + We did not dare to breathe a prayer, + Or to give our anguish scope: + Something was dead in each of us, + And what was dead was Hope. + + For Man’s grim Justice goes its way, + And will not swerve aside: + It slays the weak, it slays the strong, + It has a deadly stride: + With iron heel it slays the strong, + The monstrous parricide! + + We waited for the stroke of eight: + Each tongue was thick with thirst: + For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate + That makes a man accursed, + And Fate will use a running noose + For the best man and the worst. + + We had no other thing to do, + Save to wait for the sign to come: + So, like things of stone in a valley lone, + Quiet we sat and dumb: + But each man’s heart beat thick and quick, + Like a madman on a drum! + + With sudden shock the prison-clock + Smote on the shivering air, + And from all the gaol rose up a wail + Of impotent despair, + Like the sound that frightened marshes hear + From some leper in his lair. + + And as one sees most fearful things + In the crystal of a dream, + We saw the greasy hempen rope + Hooked to the blackened beam, + And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare + Strangled into a scream. + + And all the woe that moved him so + That he gave that bitter cry, + And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, + None knew so well as I: + For he who lives more lives than one + More deaths than one must die. + + IV + + THERE is no chapel on the day + On which they hang a man: + The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick, + Or his face is far too wan, + Or there is that written in his eyes + Which none should look upon. + + So they kept us close till nigh on noon, + And then they rang the bell, + And the Warders with their jingling keys + Opened each listening cell, + And down the iron stair we tramped, + Each from his separate Hell. + + Out into God’s sweet air we went, + But not in wonted way, + For this man’s face was white with fear, + And that man’s face was grey, + And I never saw sad men who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw sad men who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + We prisoners called the sky, + And at every careless cloud that passed + In happy freedom by. + + But there were those amongst us all + Who walked with downcast head, + And knew that, had each got his due, + They should have died instead: + He had but killed a thing that lived, + Whilst they had killed the dead. + + For he who sins a second time + Wakes a dead soul to pain, + And draws it from its spotted shroud, + And makes it bleed again, + And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, + And makes it bleed in vain! + + Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb + With crooked arrows starred, + Silently we went round and round + The slippery asphalte yard; + Silently we went round and round, + And no man spoke a word. + + Silently we went round and round, + And through each hollow mind + The Memory of dreadful things + Rushed like a dreadful wind, + And Horror stalked before each man, + And Terror crept behind. + + The Warders strutted up and down, + And kept their herd of brutes, + Their uniforms were spick and span, + And they wore their Sunday suits, + But we knew the work they had been at, + By the quicklime on their boots. + + For where a grave had opened wide, + There was no grave at all: + Only a stretch of mud and sand + By the hideous prison-wall, + And a little heap of burning lime, + That the man should have his pall. + + For he has a pall, this wretched man, + Such as few men can claim: + Deep down below a prison-yard, + Naked for greater shame, + He lies, with fetters on each foot, + Wrapt in a sheet of flame! + + And all the while the burning lime + Eats flesh and bone away, + It eats the brittle bone by night, + And the soft flesh by day, + It eats the flesh and bone by turns, + But it eats the heart alway. + + For three long years they will not sow + Or root or seedling there: + For three long years the unblessed spot + Will sterile be and bare, + And look upon the wondering sky + With unreproachful stare. + + They think a murderer’s heart would taint + Each simple seed they sow. + It is not true! God’s kindly earth + Is kindlier than men know, + And the red rose would but blow more red, + The white rose whiter blow. + + Out of his mouth a red, red rose! + Out of his heart a white! + For who can say by what strange way, + Christ brings His will to light, + Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore + Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight? + + But neither milk-white rose nor red + May bloom in prison-air; + The shard, the pebble, and the flint, + Are what they give us there: + For flowers have been known to heal + A common man’s despair. + + So never will wine-red rose or white, + Petal by petal, fall + On that stretch of mud and sand that lies + By the hideous prison-wall, + To tell the men who tramp the yard + That God’s Son died for all. + + Yet though the hideous prison-wall + Still hems him round and round, + And a spirit may not walk by night + That is with fetters bound, + And a spirit may but weep that lies + In such unholy ground, + + He is at peace—this wretched man— + At peace, or will be soon: + There is no thing to make him mad, + Nor does Terror walk at noon, + For the lampless Earth in which he lies + Has neither Sun nor Moon. + + They hanged him as a beast is hanged: + They did not even toll + A requiem that might have brought + Rest to his startled soul, + But hurriedly they took him out, + And hid him in a hole. + + They stripped him of his canvas clothes, + And gave him to the flies: + They mocked the swollen purple throat, + And the stark and staring eyes: + And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud + In which their convict lies. + + The Chaplain would not kneel to pray + By his dishonoured grave: + Nor mark it with that blessed Cross + That Christ for sinners gave, + Because the man was one of those + Whom Christ came down to save. + + Yet all is well; he has but passed + To Life’s appointed bourne: + And alien tears will fill for him + Pity’s long-broken urn, + For his mourners will be outcast men, + And outcasts always mourn + + V + + I KNOW not whether Laws be right, + Or whether Laws be wrong; + All that we know who lie in gaol + Is that the wall is strong; + And that each day is like a year, + A year whose days are long. + + But this I know, that every Law + That men have made for Man, + Since first Man took his brother’s life, + And the sad world began, + But straws the wheat and saves the chaff + With a most evil fan. + + This too I know—and wise it were + If each could know the same— + That every prison that men build + Is built with bricks of shame, + And bound with bars lest Christ should see + How men their brothers maim. + + With bars they blur the gracious moon, + And blind the goodly sun: + And they do well to hide their Hell, + For in it things are done + That Son of God nor son of Man + Ever should look upon! + + The vilest deeds like poison weeds, + Bloom well in prison-air; + It is only what is good in Man + That wastes and withers there: + Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, + And the Warder is Despair. + + For they starve the little frightened child + Till it weeps both night and day: + And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, + And gibe the old and grey, + And some grow mad, and all grow bad, + And none a word may say. + + Each narrow cell in which we dwell + Is a foul and dark latrine, + And the fetid breath of living Death + Chokes up each grated screen, + And all, but Lust, is turned to dust + In Humanity’s machine. + + The brackish water that we drink + Creeps with a loathsome slime, + And the bitter bread they weigh in scales + Is full of chalk and lime, + And Sleep will not lie down, but walks + Wild-eyed, and cries to Time. + + But though lean Hunger and green Thirst + Like asp with adder fight, + We have little care of prison fare, + For what chills and kills outright + Is that every stone one lifts by day + Becomes one’s heart by night. + + With midnight always in one’s heart, + And twilight in one’s cell, + We turn the crank, or tear the rope, + Each in his separate Hell, + And the silence is more awful far + Than the sound of a brazen bell. + + And never a human voice comes near + To speak a gentle word: + And the eye that watches through the door + Is pitiless and hard: + And by all forgot, we rot and rot, + With soul and body marred. + + And thus we rust Life’s iron chain + Degraded and alone: + And some men curse, and some men weep, + And some men make no moan: + But God’s eternal Laws are kind + And break the heart of stone. + + And every human heart that breaks, + In prison-cell or yard, + Is as that broken box that gave + Its treasure to the Lord, + And filled the unclean leper’s house + With the scent of costliest nard. + + Ah! happy they whose hearts can break + And peace of pardon win! + How else may man make straight his plan + And cleanse his soul from Sin? + How else but through a broken heart + May Lord Christ enter in? + + And he of the swollen purple throat, + And the stark and staring eyes, + Waits for the holy hands that took + The Thief to Paradise; + And a broken and a contrite heart + The Lord will not despise. + + The man in red who reads the Law + Gave him three weeks of life, + Three little weeks in which to heal + His soul of his soul’s strife, + And cleanse from every blot of blood + The hand that held the knife. + + And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, + The hand that held the steel: + For only blood can wipe out blood, + And only tears can heal: + And the crimson stain that was of Cain + Became Christ’s snow-white seal. + + VI + + IN Reading gaol by Reading town + There is a pit of shame, + And in it lies a wretched man + Eaten by teeth of flame, + In a burning winding-sheet he lies, + And his grave has got no name. + + And there, till Christ call forth the dead, + In silence let him lie: + No need to waste the foolish tear, + Or heave the windy sigh: + The man had killed the thing he loved, + And so he had to die. + + And all men kill the thing they love, + By all let this be heard, + Some do it with a bitter look, + Some with a flattering word, + The coward does it with a kiss, + The brave man with a sword! + + + +APPENDIX +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + + A VERSION BASED ON THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM + + I + + HE did not wear his scarlet coat, + For blood and wine are red, + And blood and wine were on his hands + When they found him with the dead, + The poor dead woman whom he loved, + And murdered in her bed. + + He walked amongst the Trial Men + In a suit of shabby grey; + A cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay; + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw a man who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + Which prisoners call the sky, + And at every drifting cloud that went + With sails of silver by. + + I walked, with other souls in pain, + Within another ring, + And was wondering if the man had done + A great or little thing, + When a voice behind me whispered low, + ‘_That fellow’s got to swing_.’ + + Dear Christ! the very prison walls + Suddenly seemed to reel, + And the sky above my head became + Like a casque of scorching steel; + And, though I was a soul in pain, + My pain I could not feel. + + I only knew what hunted thought + Quickened his step, and why + He looked upon the garish day + With such a wistful eye; + The man had killed the thing he loved, + And so he had to die. + + Yet each man kills the thing he loves, + By each let this be heard, + Some do it with a bitter look, + Some with a flattering word, + The coward does it with a kiss, + The brave man with a sword! + + Some kill their love when they are young, + And some when they are old; + Some strangle with the hands of Lust, + Some with the hands of Gold: + The kindest use a knife, because + The dead so soon grow cold. + + Some love too little, some too long, + Some sell, and others buy; + Some do the deed with many tears, + And some without a sigh: + For each man kills the thing he loves, + Yet each man does not die. + + He does not die a death of shame + On a day of dark disgrace, + Nor have a noose about his neck, + Nor a cloth upon his face, + Nor drop feet foremost through the floor + Into an empty space. + + He does not wake at dawn to see + Dread figures throng his room, + The shivering Chaplain robed in white, + The Sheriff stern with gloom, + And the Governor all in shiny black, + With the yellow face of Doom. + + He does not rise in piteous haste + To put on convict-clothes, + While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes + Each new and nerve-twitched pose, + Fingering a watch whose little ticks + Are like horrible hammer-blows. + + He does not know that sickening thirst + That sands one’s throat, before + The hangman with his gardener’s gloves + Slips through the padded door, + And binds one with three leathern thongs, + That the throat may thirst no more. + + He does not bend his head to hear + The Burial Office read, + Nor, while the terror of his soul + Tells him he is not dead, + Cross his own coffin, as he moves + Into the hideous shed. + + He does not stare upon the air + Through a little roof of glass: + He does not pray with lips of clay + For his agony to pass; + Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek + The kiss of Caiaphas. + + II + + SIX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, + In the suit of shabby grey: + His cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay, + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + He did not wring his hands nor weep, + Nor did he peek or pine, + But he drank the air as though it held + Some healthful anodyne; + With open mouth he drank the sun + As though it had been wine! + + And I and all the souls in pain, + Who tramped the other ring, + Forgot if we ourselves had done + A great or little thing, + And watched with gaze of dull amaze + The man who had to swing. + + So with curious eyes and sick surmise + We watched him day by day, + And wondered if each one of us + Would end the self-same way, + For none can tell to what red Hell + His sightless soul may stray. + + At last the dead man walked no more + Amongst the Trial Men, + And I knew that he was standing up + In the black dock’s dreadful pen, + And that never would I see his face + In God’s sweet world again. + + Like two doomed ships that pass in storm + We had crossed each other’s way: + But we made no sign, we said no word, + We had no word to say; + For we did not meet in the holy night, + But in the shameful day. + + A prison wall was round us both, + Two outcast men we were: + The world had thrust us from its heart, + And God from out His care: + And the iron gin that waits for Sin + Had caught us in its snare. + + III + + IN Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, + And the dripping wall is high, + So it was there he took the air + Beneath the leaden sky, + And by each side a Warder walked, + For fear the man might die. + + Or else he sat with those who watched + His anguish night and day; + Who watched him when he rose to weep, + And when he crouched to pray; + Who watched him lest himself should rob + Their scaffold of its prey. + + And twice a day he smoked his pipe, + And drank his quart of beer: + His soul was resolute, and held + No hiding-place for fear; + He often said that he was glad + The hangman’s hands were near. + + But why he said so strange a thing + No Warder dared to ask: + For he to whom a watcher’s doom + Is given as his task, + Must set a lock upon his lips, + And make his face a mask. + + With slouch and swing around the ring + We trod the Fools’ Parade! + We did not care: we knew we were + The Devil’s Own Brigade: + And shaven head and feet of lead + Make a merry masquerade. + + We tore the tarry rope to shreds + With blunt and bleeding nails; + We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, + And cleaned the shining rails: + And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, + And clattered with the pails. + + We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, + We turned the dusty drill: + We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, + And sweated on the mill: + But in the heart of every man + Terror was lying still. + + So still it lay that every day + Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: + And we forgot the bitter lot + That waits for fool and knave, + Till once, as we tramped in from work, + We passed an open grave. + + Right in we went, with soul intent + On Death and Dread and Doom: + The hangman, with his little bag, + Went shuffling through the gloom: + And each man trembled as he crept + Into his numbered tomb. + + That night the empty corridors + Were full of forms of Fear, + And up and down the iron town + Stole feet we could not hear, + And through the bars that hide the stars + White faces seemed to peer. + + But there is no sleep when men must weep + Who never yet have wept: + So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— + That endless vigil kept, + And through each brain on hands of pain + Another’s terror crept. + + Alas! it is a fearful thing + To feel another’s guilt! + For, right within, the sword of Sin + Pierced to its poisoned hilt, + And as molten lead were the tears we shed + For the blood we had not spilt. + + The Warders with their shoes of felt + Crept by each padlocked door, + And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, + Grey figures on the floor, + And wondered why men knelt to pray + Who never prayed before. + + The morning wind began to moan, + But still the night went on: + Through its giant loom the web of gloom + Crept till each thread was spun: + And, as we prayed, we grew afraid + Of the Justice of the Sun. + + At last I saw the shadowed bars, + Like a lattice wrought in lead, + Move right across the whitewashed wall + That faced my three-plank bed, + And I knew that somewhere in the world + God’s dreadful dawn was red. + + At six o’clock we cleaned our cells, + At seven all was still, + But the sough and swing of a mighty wing + The prison seemed to fill, + For the Lord of Death with icy breath + Had entered in to kill. + + He did not pass in purple pomp, + Nor ride a moon-white steed. + Three yards of cord and a sliding board + Are all the gallows’ need: + So with rope of shame the Herald came + To do the secret deed. + + We waited for the stroke of eight: + Each tongue was thick with thirst: + For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate + That makes a man accursed, + And Fate will use a running noose + For the best man and the worst. + + We had no other thing to do, + Save to wait for the sign to come: + So, like things of stone in a valley lone, + Quiet we sat and dumb: + But each man’s heart beat thick and quick, + Like a madman on a drum! + + With sudden shock the prison-clock + Smote on the shivering air, + And from all the gaol rose up a wail + Of impotent despair, + Like the sound that frightened marshes hear + From some leper in his lair. + + And as one sees most fearful things + In the crystal of a dream, + We saw the greasy hempen rope + Hooked to the blackened beam, + And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare + Strangled into a scream. + + And all the woe that moved him so + That he gave that bitter cry, + And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, + None knew so well as I: + For he who lives more lives than one + More deaths than one must die. + + IV + + THERE is no chapel on the day + On which they hang a man: + The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick, + Or his face is far too wan, + Or there is that written in his eyes + Which none should look upon. + + So they kept us close till nigh on noon, + And then they rang the bell, + And the Warders with their jingling keys + Opened each listening cell, + And down the iron stair we tramped, + Each from his separate Hell. + + Out into God’s sweet air we went, + But not in wonted way, + For this man’s face was white with fear, + And that man’s face was grey, + And I never saw sad men who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw sad men who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + We prisoners called the sky, + And at every careless cloud that passed + In happy freedom by. + + But there were those amongst us all + Who walked with downcast head, + And knew that, had each got his due, + They should have died instead: + He had but killed a thing that lived, + Whilst they had killed the dead. + + For he who sins a second time + Wakes a dead soul to pain, + And draws it from its spotted shroud, + And makes it bleed again, + And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, + And makes it bleed in vain! + + Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb + With crooked arrows starred, + Silently we went round and round + The slippery asphalte yard; + Silently we went round and round, + And no man spoke a word. + + Silently we went round and round, + And through each hollow mind + The Memory of dreadful things + Rushed like a dreadful wind, + And Horror stalked before each man, + And Terror crept behind. + + The Warders strutted up and down, + And kept their herd of brutes, + Their uniforms were spick and span, + And they wore their Sunday suits, + But we knew the work they had been at, + By the quicklime on their boots. + + For where a grave had opened wide, + There was no grave at all: + Only a stretch of mud and sand + By the hideous prison-wall, + And a little heap of burning lime, + That the man should have his pall. + + For he has a pall, this wretched man, + Such as few men can claim: + Deep down below a prison-yard, + Naked for greater shame, + He lies, with fetters on each foot, + Wrapt in a sheet of flame! + + For three long years they will not sow + Or root or seedling there: + For three long years the unblessed spot + Will sterile be and bare, + And look upon the wondering sky + With unreproachful stare. + + They think a murderer’s heart would taint + Each simple seed they sow. + It is not true! God’s kindly earth + Is kindlier than men know, + And the red rose would but blow more red, + The white rose whiter blow. + + Out of his mouth a red, red rose! + Out of his heart a white! + For who can say by what strange way, + Christ brings His will to light, + Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore + Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight? + + But neither milk-white rose nor red + May bloom in prison-air; + The shard, the pebble, and the flint, + Are what they give us there: + For flowers have been known to heal + A common man’s despair. + + So never will wine-red rose or white, + Petal by petal, fall + On that stretch of mud and sand that lies + By the hideous prison-wall, + To tell the men who tramp the yard + That God’s Son died for all. + + He is at peace—this wretched man— + At peace, or will be soon: + There is no thing to make him mad, + Nor does Terror walk at noon, + For the lampless Earth in which he lies + Has neither Sun nor Moon. + + The Chaplain would not kneel to pray + By his dishonoured grave: + Nor mark it with that blessed Cross + That Christ for sinners gave, + Because the man was one of those + Whom Christ came down to save. + + Yet all is well; he has but passed + To Life’s appointed bourne: + And alien tears will fill for him + Pity’s long-broken urn, + For his mourners will be outcast men, + And outcasts always mourn. + + + + +POEMS +AVE IMPERATRIX + + + SET in this stormy Northern sea, + Queen of these restless fields of tide, + England! what shall men say of thee, + Before whose feet the worlds divide? + + The earth, a brittle globe of glass, + Lies in the hollow of thy hand, + And through its heart of crystal pass, + Like shadows through a twilight land, + + The spears of crimson-suited war, + The long white-crested waves of fight, + And all the deadly fires which are + The torches of the lords of Night. + + The yellow leopards, strained and lean, + The treacherous Russian knows so well, + With gaping blackened jaws are seen + Leap through the hail of screaming shell. + + The strong sea-lion of England’s wars + Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, + To battle with the storm that mars + The stars of England’s chivalry. + + The brazen-throated clarion blows + Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, + And the high steeps of Indian snows + Shake to the tread of armèd men. + + And many an Afghan chief, who lies + Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, + Clutches his sword in fierce surmise + When on the mountain-side he sees + + The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes + To tell how he hath heard afar + The measured roll of English drums + Beat at the gates of Kandahar. + + For southern wind and east wind meet + Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, + England with bare and bloody feet + Climbs the steep road of wide empire. + + O lonely Himalayan height, + Grey pillar of the Indian sky, + Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight + Our wingèd dogs of Victory? + + The almond-groves of Samarcand, + Bokhara, where red lilies blow, + And Oxus, by whose yellow sand + The grave white-turbaned merchants go: + + And on from thence to Ispahan, + The gilded garden of the sun, + Whence the long dusty caravan + Brings cedar wood and vermilion; + + And that dread city of Cabool + Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet, + Whose marble tanks are ever full + With water for the noonday heat: + + Where through the narrow straight Bazaar + A little maid Circassian + Is led, a present from the Czar + Unto some old and bearded Khan,— + + Here have our wild war-eagles flown, + And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; + But the sad dove, that sits alone + In England—she hath no delight. + + In vain the laughing girl will lean + To greet her love with love-lit eyes: + Down in some treacherous black ravine, + Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. + + And many a moon and sun will see + The lingering wistful children wait + To climb upon their father’s knee; + And in each house made desolate + + Pale women who have lost their lord + Will kiss the relics of the slain— + Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— + Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. + + For not in quiet English fields + Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, + Where we might deck their broken shields + With all the flowers the dead love best. + + For some are by the Delhi walls, + And many in the Afghan land, + And many where the Ganges falls + Through seven mouths of shifting sand. + + And some in Russian waters lie, + And others in the seas which are + The portals to the East, or by + The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. + + O wandering graves! O restless sleep! + O silence of the sunless day! + O still ravine! O stormy deep! + Give up your prey! Give up your prey! + + And thou whose wounds are never healed, + Whose weary race is never won, + O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield + For every inch of ground a son? + + Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, + Change thy glad song to song of pain; + Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, + And will not yield them back again. + + Wave and wild wind and foreign shore + Possess the flower of English land— + Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, + Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. + + What profit now that we have bound + The whole round world with nets of gold, + If hidden in our heart is found + The care that groweth never old? + + What profit that our galleys ride, + Pine-forest-like, on every main? + Ruin and wreck are at our side, + Grim warders of the House of Pain. + + Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? + Where is our English chivalry? + Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, + And sobbing waves their threnody. + + O loved ones lying far away, + What word of love can dead lips send! + O wasted dust! O senseless clay! + Is this the end! is this the end! + + Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead + To vex their solemn slumber so; + Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, + Up the steep road must England go, + + Yet when this fiery web is spun, + Her watchmen shall descry from far + The young Republic like a sun + Rise from these crimson seas of war. + + + + +TO MY WIFE +WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS + + + I CAN write no stately proem + As a prelude to my lay; + From a poet to a poem + I would dare to say. + + For if of these fallen petals + One to you seem fair, + Love will waft it till it settles + On your hair. + + And when wind and winter harden + All the loveless land, + It will whisper of the garden, + You will understand. + + + + +MAGDALEN WALKS + + +[_After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity College_, +_Dublin_, _in 1874_, _Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford_, _where he +obtained a demyship at Magdalen College_. _He is the only real poet on +the books of that institution_.] + + THE little white clouds are racing over the sky, + And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, + The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch + Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. + + A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze, + The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth, + The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth, + Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. + + And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, + And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, + And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire + Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. + + And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love + Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, + And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen + Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove. + + See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, + Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, + And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! + The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. + + + + +THEOCRITUS +A VILLANELLE + + + O SINGER of Persephone! + In the dim meadows desolate + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Still through the ivy flits the bee + Where Amaryllis lies in state; + O Singer of Persephone! + + Simætha calls on Hecate + And hears the wild dogs at the gate; + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Still by the light and laughing sea + Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate; + O Singer of Persephone! + + And still in boyish rivalry + Young Daphnis challenges his mate; + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, + For thee the jocund shepherds wait; + O Singer of Persephone! + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + + + +GREECE + + + THE sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky + Burned like a heated opal through the air; + We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair + For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. + From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye + Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, + Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, + And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. + The flapping of the sail against the mast, + The ripple of the water on the side, + The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, + The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn, + And a red sun upon the seas to ride, + I stood upon the soil of Greece at last! + +KATAKOLO. + + + + +PORTIA +TO ELLEN TERRY + + + (_Written at the Lyceum Theatre_) + + I MARVEL not Bassanio was so bold + To peril all he had upon the lead, + Or that proud Aragon bent low his head + Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold: + For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold + Which is more golden than the golden sun + No woman Veronesé looked upon + Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. + Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield + The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned, + And would not let the laws of Venice yield + Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew— + O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: + I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. + + + + +FABIEN DEI FRANCHI +TO MY FRIEND HENRY IRVING + + + THE silent room, the heavy creeping shade, + The dead that travel fast, the opening door, + The murdered brother rising through the floor, + The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid, + And then the lonely duel in the glade, + The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, + Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,— + These things are well enough,—but thou wert made + For more august creation! frenzied Lear + Should at thy bidding wander on the heath + With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo + For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear + Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath— + Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow! + + + + +PHÈDRE +TO SARAH BERNHARDT + + + HOW vain and dull this common world must seem + To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked + At Florence with Mirandola, or walked + Through the cool olives of the Academe: + Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream + For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played + With the white girls in that Phæacian glade + Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. + + Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay + Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again + Back to this common world so dull and vain, + For thou wert weary of the sunless day, + The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, + The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. + + + + +SONNET + + + ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL + + NAY, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, + Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, + Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love + Than terrors of red flame and thundering. + The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: + A bird at evening flying to its nest + Tells me of One who had no place of rest: + I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. + Come rather on some autumn afternoon, + When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, + And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song, + Come when the splendid fulness of the moon + Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, + And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long. + + + + +AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA + + + WAS this His coming! I had hoped to see + A scene of wondrous glory, as was told + Of some great God who in a rain of gold + Broke open bars and fell on Danae: + Or a dread vision as when Semele + Sickening for love and unappeased desire + Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire + Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly: + With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, + And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand + Before this supreme mystery of Love: + Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face, + An angel with a lily in his hand, + And over both the white wings of a Dove. + +FLORENCE. + + + + +LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES + + + ALBEIT nurtured in democracy, + And liking best that state republican + Where every man is Kinglike and no man + Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, + Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, + Better the rule of One, whom all obey, + Than to let clamorous demagogues betray + Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. + Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane + Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street + For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign + Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, + Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, + Or Murder with his silent bloody feet. + + + + +ROSES AND RUE + + + (To L. L.) + + COULD we dig up this long-buried treasure, + Were it worth the pleasure, + We never could learn love’s song, + We are parted too long. + + Could the passionate past that is fled + Call back its dead, + Could we live it all over again, + Were it worth the pain! + + I remember we used to meet + By an ivied seat, + And you warbled each pretty word + With the air of a bird; + + And your voice had a quaver in it, + Just like a linnet, + And shook, as the blackbird’s throat + With its last big note; + + And your eyes, they were green and grey + Like an April day, + But lit into amethyst + When I stooped and kissed; + + And your mouth, it would never smile + For a long, long while, + Then it rippled all over with laughter + Five minutes after. + + You were always afraid of a shower, + Just like a flower: + I remember you started and ran + When the rain began. + + I remember I never could catch you, + For no one could match you, + You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, + Little wings to your feet. + + I remember your hair—did I tie it? + For it always ran riot— + Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: + These things are old. + + I remember so well the room, + And the lilac bloom + That beat at the dripping pane + In the warm June rain; + + And the colour of your gown, + It was amber-brown, + And two yellow satin bows + From your shoulders rose. + + And the handkerchief of French lace + Which you held to your face— + Had a small tear left a stain? + Or was it the rain? + + On your hand as it waved adieu + There were veins of blue; + In your voice as it said good-bye + Was a petulant cry, + + ‘You have only wasted your life.’ + (Ah, that was the knife!) + When I rushed through the garden gate + It was all too late. + + Could we live it over again, + Were it worth the pain, + Could the passionate past that is fled + Call back its dead! + + Well, if my heart must break, + Dear love, for your sake, + It will break in music, I know, + Poets’ hearts break so. + + But strange that I was not told + That the brain can hold + In a tiny ivory cell + God’s heaven and hell. + + + + +FROM ‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’ + + +[_In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the +nineteenth century_. _He hails Keats and Shelley and some of the poets +and artists who were his contemporaries_, _although his seniors_, _as the +torch-bearers of the intellectual life_. _Among these are Swinburne_, +_William Morris_, _Rossetti_, _and Brune-Jones_.] + + NAY, when Keats died the Muses still had left + One silver voice to sing his threnody, {128} + But ah! too soon of it we were bereft + When on that riven night and stormy sea + Panthea claimed her singer as her own, + And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone, + + Save for that fiery heart, that morning star {129} + Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye + Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war + The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy + Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring + The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing, + + And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, + And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot + In passionless and fierce virginity + Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute + Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, + And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still. + + And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, + And sung the Galilæan’s requiem, + That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine + He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him + Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, + And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror. + + Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, + It is not quenched the torch of poesy, + The star that shook above the Eastern hill + Holds unassailed its argent armoury + From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight— + O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night, + + Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child, + Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed, + With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled + The weary soul of man in troublous need, + And from the far and flowerless fields of ice + Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise. + + We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride, + Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, + How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, + And what enchantment held the king in thrall + When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers + That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours, + + Long listless summer hours when the noon + Being enamoured of a damask rose + Forgets to journey westward, till the moon + The pale usurper of its tribute grows + From a thin sickle to a silver shield + And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field + + Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, + At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come + Almost before the blackbird finds a mate + And overstay the swallow, and the hum + Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, + Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves, + + And through their unreal woes and mimic pain + Wept for myself, and so was purified, + And in their simple mirth grew glad again; + For as I sailed upon that pictured tide + The strength and splendour of the storm was mine + Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine; + + The little laugh of water falling down + Is not so musical, the clammy gold + Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town + Has less of sweetness in it, and the old + Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady + Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony. + + Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! + Although the cheating merchants of the mart + With iron roads profane our lovely isle, + And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, + Ay! though the crowded factories beget + The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet! + + For One at least there is,—He bears his name + From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—{136} + Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame + To light thine altar; He {137} too loves thee well, + Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare, + And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair, + + Loves thee so well, that all the World for him + A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, + And Sorrow take a purple diadem, + Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair + Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be + Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery + + Which Painters hold, and such the heritage + This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, + Being a better mirror of his age + In all his pity, love, and weariness, + Than those who can but copy common things, + And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings. + + But they are few, and all romance has flown, + And men can prophesy about the sun, + And lecture on his arrows—how, alone, + Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, + How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, + And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head. + + + + +THE HARLOT’S HOUSE + + + WE caught the tread of dancing feet, + We loitered down the moonlit street, + And stopped beneath the harlot’s house. + + Inside, above the din and fray, + We heard the loud musicians play + The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss. + + Like strange mechanical grotesques, + Making fantastic arabesques, + The shadows raced across the blind. + + We watched the ghostly dancers spin + To sound of horn and violin, + Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. + + Like wire-pulled automatons, + Slim silhouetted skeletons + Went sidling through the slow quadrille, + + Then took each other by the hand, + And danced a stately saraband; + Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. + + Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed + A phantom lover to her breast, + Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. + + Sometimes a horrible marionette + Came out, and smoked its cigarette + Upon the steps like a live thing. + + Then, turning to my love, I said, + ‘The dead are dancing with the dead, + The dust is whirling with the dust.’ + + But she—she heard the violin, + And left my side, and entered in: + Love passed into the house of lust. + + Then suddenly the tune went false, + The dancers wearied of the waltz, + The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. + + And down the long and silent street, + The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, + Crept like a frightened girl. + + + + +FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’ + + + THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome, + Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea + Breaking across the woodland, with the foam + Of meadow-sweet and white anemone + To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there + Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! + + Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take + Yon creamy lily for their pavilion + Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake + A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, + His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old + Bishop in _partibus_! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold. + + The wind the restless prisoner of the trees + Does well for Palæstrina, one would say + The mighty master’s hands were on the keys + Of the Maria organ, which they play + When early on some sapphire Easter morn + In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne + + From his dark House out to the Balcony + Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, + Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy + To toss their silver lances in the air, + And stretching out weak hands to East and West + In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest. + + Is not yon lingering orange after-glow + That stays to vex the moon more fair than all + Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago + I knelt before some crimson Cardinal + Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, + And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine. + + The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous + With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring + Through this cool evening than the odorous + Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, + When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, + And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine. + + Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Mass + Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird + Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass + I see that throbbing throat which once I heard + On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, + Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea. + + Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves + At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, + And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves + Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe + To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait + Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate. + + And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, + And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, + And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees + That round and round the linden blossoms play; + And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, + And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall, + + And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring + While the last violet loiters by the well, + And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing + The song of Linus through a sunny dell + Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold + And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold. + + * * * * * + + It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, + No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, + The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, + And from the copse left desolate and bare + Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, + Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody + + So sad, that one might think a human heart + Brake in each separate note, a quality + Which music sometimes has, being the Art + Which is most nigh to tears and memory; + Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? + Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here, + + Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, + No woven web of bloody heraldries, + But mossy dells for roving comrades made, + Warm valleys where the tired student lies + With half-shut book, and many a winding walk + Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. + + The harmless rabbit gambols with its young + Across the trampled towing-path, where late + A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng + Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; + The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, + Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds + + Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out + Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock + Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout + Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, + And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, + And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill. + + The heron passes homeward to the mere, + The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, + Gold world by world the silent stars appear, + And like a blossom blown before the breeze + A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, + Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. + + She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, + She knows Endymion is not far away; + ’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed + Which has no message of its own to play, + So pipes another’s bidding, it is I, + Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. + + Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill + About the sombre woodland seems to cling + Dying in music, else the air is still, + So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing + Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell + Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell. + + And far away across the lengthening wold, + Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, + Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold + Marks the long High Street of the little town, + And warns me to return; I must not wait, + Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate. + + + + +FLOWER OF LOVE + + + SWEET, I blame you not, for mine the fault + was, had I not been made of common clay + I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed + yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day. + + From the wildness of my wasted passion I had + struck a better, clearer song, + Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled + with some Hydra-headed wrong. + + Had my lips been smitten into music by the + kisses that but made them bleed, + You had walked with Bice and the angels on + that verdant and enamelled mead. + + I had trod the road which Dante treading saw + the suns of seven circles shine, + Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, + as they opened to the Florentine. + + And the mighty nations would have crowned + me, who am crownless now and without name, + And some orient dawn had found me kneeling + on the threshold of the House of Fame. + + I had sat within that marble circle where the + oldest bard is as the young, + And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the + lyre’s strings are ever strung. + + Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out + the poppy-seeded wine, + With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, + clasped the hand of noble love in mine. + + And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms + brush the burnished bosom of the dove, + Two young lovers lying in an orchard would + have read the story of our love; + + Would have read the legend of my passion, + known the bitter secret of my heart, + Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as + we two are fated now to part. + + For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by + the cankerworm of truth, + And no hand can gather up the fallen withered + petals of the rose of youth. + + Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! + what else had I a boy to do,— + For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the + silent-footed years pursue. + + Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and + when once the storm of youth is past, + Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death + the silent pilot comes at last. + + And within the grave there is no pleasure, + for the blindworm battens on the root, + And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree + of Passion bears no fruit. + + Ah! what else had I to do but love you? + God’s own mother was less dear to me, + And less dear the Cytheræan rising like an + argent lily from the sea. + + I have made my choice, have lived my + poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days, + I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better + than the poet’s crown of bays. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{128} Shelley. + +{129} Swinburne. + +{136} Rossetti. + +{137} Burne-Jones. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1141-0.txt or 1141-0.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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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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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 NINE editions. +Readers will be able to make for themselves the obvious and +striking contrasts 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. + +Robert Ross +Reform Club, +April 5, 1911 + + + +Contents + + +The Ballad Of Reading Gaol +Ave Imperatrix +To My Wife - With A Copy Of My Poems +Magdalen Walks +Theocritus - A Villanelle +Greece +Portia +Fabien Dei Franchi +Phedre +Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel +Ave Maria Gratia Plena +Libertatis Sacra Fames +Roses And Rue +From 'The Garden Of Eros' +The Harlot's House +From 'The Burden Of Itys' +Flower of Love + + + +NOTE + +At 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. + +Robert Ross + + + +Poem: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol + + + +In memoriam of C. T. W. +Sometimes trooper of +The Royal Horse Guards +Obiit H.M. Prison +Reading, Berkshire +July 7th, 1896 + + +I + +He did not wear his scarlet coat, +For blood and wine are red, +And blood and wine were on his hands +When they found him with the dead, +The poor dead woman whom he loved, +And murdered in her bed. + +He walked amongst the Trial Men +In a suit of shabby grey; +A cricket cap was on his head, +And his step seemed light and gay; +But I never saw a man who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +I never saw a man who looked +With such a wistful eye +Upon that little tent of blue +Which prisoners call the sky, +And at every drifting cloud that went +With sails of silver by. + +I walked, with other souls in pain, +Within another ring, +And was wondering if the man had done +A great or little thing, +When a voice behind me whispered low, +'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.' + +Dear Christ! the very prison walls +Suddenly seemed to reel, +And the sky above my head became +Like a casque of scorching steel; +And, though I was a soul in pain, +My pain I could not feel. + +I only knew what hunted thought +Quickened his step, and why +He looked upon the garish day +With such a wistful eye; +The man had killed the thing he loved, +And so he had to die. + +Yet each man kills the thing he loves, +By each let this be heard, +Some do it with a bitter look, +Some with a flattering word, +The coward does it with a kiss, +The brave man with a sword! + +Some kill their love when they are young, +And some when they are old; +Some strangle with the hands of Lust, +Some with the hands of Gold: +The kindest use a knife, because +The dead so soon grow cold. + +Some love too little, some too long, +Some sell, and others buy; +Some do the deed with many tears, +And some without a sigh: +For each man kills the thing he loves, +Yet each man does not die. + +He does not die a death of shame +On a day of dark disgrace, +Nor have a noose about his neck, +Nor a cloth upon his face, +Nor drop feet foremost through the floor +Into an empty space. + + +He does not sit with silent men +Who watch him night and day; +Who watch him when he tries to weep, +And when he tries to pray; +Who watch him lest himself should rob +The prison of its prey. + +He does not wake at dawn to see +Dread figures throng his room, +The shivering Chaplain robed in white, +The Sheriff stern with gloom, +And the Governor all in shiny black, +With the yellow face of Doom. + +He does not rise in piteous haste +To put on convict-clothes, +While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, +and notes +Each new and nerve-twitched pose, +Fingering a watch whose little ticks +Are like horrible hammer-blows. + +He does not know that sickening thirst +That sands one's throat, before +The hangman with his gardener's gloves +Slips through the padded door, +And binds one with three leathern thongs, +That the throat may thirst no more. + +He does not bend his head to hear +The Burial Office read, +Nor, while the terror of his soul +Tells him he is not dead, +Cross his own coffin, as he moves +Into the hideous shed. + +He does not stare upon the air +Through a little roof of glass: +He does not pray with lips of clay +For his agony to pass; +Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek +The kiss of Caiaphas. + + +II + + +Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard, +In the suit of shabby grey: +His cricket cap was on his head, +And his step seemed light and gay, +But I never saw a man who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +I never saw a man who looked +With such a wistful eye +Upon that little tent of blue +Which prisoners call the sky, +And at every wandering cloud that trailed +Its ravelled fleeces by. + +He did not wring his hands, as do +Those witless men who dare +To try to rear the changeling Hope +In the cave of black Despair: +He only looked upon the sun, +And drank the morning air. + +He did not wring his hands nor weep, +Nor did he peek or pine, +But he drank the air as though it held +Some healthful anodyne; +With open mouth he drank the sun +As though it had been wine! + +And I and all the souls in pain, +Who tramped the other ring, +Forgot if we ourselves had done +A great or little thing, +And watched with gaze of dull amaze +The man who had to swing. + +And strange it was to see him pass +With a step so light and gay, +And strange it was to see him look +So wistfully at the day, +And strange it was to think that he +Had such a debt to pay. + +For oak and elm have pleasant leaves +That in the springtime shoot: +But grim to see is the gallows-tree, +With its adder-bitten root, +And, green or dry, a man must die +Before it bears its fruit! + +The loftiest place is that seat of grace +For which all worldlings try: +But who would stand in hempen band +Upon a scaffold high, +And through a murderer's collar take +His last look at the sky? + +It is sweet to dance to violins +When Love and Life are fair: +To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes +Is delicate and rare: +But it is not sweet with nimble feet +To dance upon the air! + +So with curious eyes and sick surmise +We watched him day by day, +And wondered if each one of us +Would end the self-same way, +For none can tell to what red Hell +His sightless soul may stray. + +At last the dead man walked no more +Amongst the Trial Men, +And I knew that he was standing up +In the black dock's dreadful pen, +And that never would I see his face +In God's sweet world again. + +Like two doomed ships that pass in storm +We had crossed each other's way: +But we made no sign, we said no word, +We had no word to say; +For we did not meet in the holy night, +But in the shameful day. + +A prison wall was round us both, +Two outcast men we were: +The world had thrust us from its heart, +And God from out His care: +And the iron gin that waits for Sin +Had caught us in its snare. + + +III + + +In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard, +And the dripping wall is high, +So it was there he took the air +Beneath the leaden sky, +And by each side a Warder walked, +For fear the man might die. + +Or else he sat with those who watched +His anguish night and day; +Who watched him when he rose to weep, +And when he crouched to pray; +Who watched him lest himself should rob +Their scaffold of its prey. + +The Governor was strong upon +The Regulations Act: +The Doctor said that Death was but +A scientific fact: +And twice a day the Chaplain called, +And left a little tract. + +And twice a day he smoked his pipe, +And drank his quart of beer: +His soul was resolute, and held +No hiding-place for fear; +He often said that he was glad +The hangman's hands were near. + +But why he said so strange a thing +No Warder dared to ask: +For he to whom a watcher's doom +Is given as his task, +Must set a lock upon his lips, +And make his face a mask. + +Or else he might be moved, and try +To comfort or console: +And what should Human Pity do +Pent up in Murderers' Hole? +What word of grace in such a place +Could help a brother's soul? + + +With slouch and swing around the ring +We trod the Fools' Parade! +We did not care: we knew we were +The Devil's Own Brigade: +And shaven head and feet of lead +Make a merry masquerade. + +We tore the tarry rope to shreds +With blunt and bleeding nails; +We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, +And cleaned the shining rails: +And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, +And clattered with the pails. + +We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, +We turned the dusty drill: +We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, +And sweated on the mill: +But in the heart of every man +Terror was lying still. + +So still it lay that every day +Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: +And we forgot the bitter lot +That waits for fool and knave, +Till once, as we tramped in from work, +We passed an open grave. + +With yawning mouth the yellow hole +Gaped for a living thing; +The very mud cried out for blood +To the thirsty asphalte ring: +And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair +Some prisoner had to swing. + +Right in we went, with soul intent +On Death and Dread and Doom: +The hangman, with his little bag, +Went shuffling through the gloom: +And each man trembled as he crept +Into his numbered tomb. + +That night the empty corridors +Were full of forms of Fear, +And up and down the iron town +Stole feet we could not hear, +And through the bars that hide the stars +White faces seemed to peer. + +He lay as one who lies and dreams +In a pleasant meadow-land, +The watchers watched him as he slept, +And could not understand +How one could sleep so sweet a sleep +With a hangman close at hand. + +But there is no sleep when men must weep +Who never yet have wept: +So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave - +That endless vigil kept, +And through each brain on hands of pain +Another's terror crept. + +Alas! it is a fearful thing +To feel another's guilt! +For, right within, the sword of Sin +Pierced to its poisoned hilt, +And as molten lead were the tears we shed +For the blood we had not spilt. + +The Warders with their shoes of felt +Crept by each padlocked door, +And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, +Grey figures on the floor, +And wondered why men knelt to pray +Who never prayed before. + +All through the night we knelt and prayed, +Mad mourners of a corse! +The troubled plumes of midnight were +The plumes upon a hearse: +And bitter wine upon a sponge +Was the savour of Remorse. + + +The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, +But never came the day: +And crooked shapes of Terror crouched, +In the corners where we lay: +And each evil sprite that walks by night +Before us seemed to play. + +They glided past, they glided fast, +Like travellers through a mist: +They mocked the moon in a rigadoon +Of delicate turn and twist, +And with formal pace and loathsome grace +The phantoms kept their tryst. + +With mop and mow, we saw them go, +Slim shadows hand in hand: +About, about, in ghostly rout +They trod a saraband: +And the damned grotesques made arabesques, +Like the wind upon the sand! + +With the pirouettes of marionettes, +They tripped on pointed tread: +But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, +As their grisly masque they led, +And loud they sang, and long they sang, +For they sang to wake the dead. + +'Oho!' they cried, 'The world is wide, +But fettered limbs go lame! +And once, or twice, to throw the dice +Is a gentlemanly game, +But he does not win who plays with Sin +In the secret House of Shame.' + +No things of air these antics were, +That frolicked with such glee: +To men whose lives were held in gyves, +And whose feet might not go free, +Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, +Most terrible to see. + +Around, around, they waltzed and wound; +Some wheeled in smirking pairs; +With the mincing step of a demirep +Some sidled up the stairs: +And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, +Each helped us at our prayers. + +The morning wind began to moan, +But still the night went on: +Through its giant loom the web of gloom +Crept till each thread was spun: +And, as we prayed, we grew afraid +Of the Justice of the Sun. + +The moaning wind went wandering round +The weeping prison-wall: +Till like a wheel of turning steel +We felt the minutes crawl: +O moaning wind! what had we done +To have such a seneschal? + +At last I saw the shadowed bars, +Like a lattice wrought in lead, +Move right across the whitewashed wall +That faced my three-plank bed, +And I knew that somewhere in the world +God's dreadful dawn was red. + +At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, +At seven all was still, +But the sough and swing of a mighty wing +The prison seemed to fill, +For the Lord of Death with icy breath +Had entered in to kill. + +He did not pass in purple pomp, +Nor ride a moon-white steed. +Three yards of cord and a sliding board +Are all the gallows' need: +So with rope of shame the Herald came +To do the secret deed. + +We were as men who through a fen +Of filthy darkness grope: +We did not dare to breathe a prayer, +Or to give our anguish scope: +Something was dead in each of us, +And what was dead was Hope. + +For Man's grim Justice goes its way, +And will not swerve aside: +It slays the weak, it slays the strong, +It has a deadly stride: +With iron heel it slays the strong, +The monstrous parricide! + +We waited for the stroke of eight: +Each tongue was thick with thirst: +For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate +That makes a man accursed, +And Fate will use a running noose +For the best man and the worst. + +We had no other thing to do, +Save to wait for the sign to come: +So, like things of stone in a valley lone, +Quiet we sat and dumb: +But each man's heart beat thick and quick, +Like a madman on a drum! + +With sudden shock the prison-clock +Smote on the shivering air, +And from all the gaol rose up a wail +Of impotent despair, +Like the sound that frightened marshes hear +From some leper in his lair. + +And as one sees most fearful things +In the crystal of a dream, +We saw the greasy hempen rope +Hooked to the blackened beam, +And heard the prayer the hangman's snare +Strangled into a scream. + +And all the woe that moved him so +That he gave that bitter cry, +And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, +None knew so well as I: +For he who lives more lives than one +More deaths than one must die. + + +IV + + +There is no chapel on the day +On which they hang a man: +The Chaplain's heart is far too sick, +Or his face is far too wan, +Or there is that written in his eyes +Which none should look upon. + +So they kept us close till nigh on noon, +And then they rang the bell, +And the Warders with their jingling keys +Opened each listening cell, +And down the iron stair we tramped, +Each from his separate Hell. + +Out into God's sweet air we went, +But not in wonted way, +For this man's face was white with fear, +And that man's face was grey, +And I never saw sad men who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +I never saw sad men who looked +With such a wistful eye +Upon that little tent of blue +We prisoners called the sky, +And at every careless cloud that passed +In happy freedom by. + +But there were those amongst us all +Who walked with downcast head, +And knew that, had each got his due, +They should have died instead: +He had but killed a thing that lived, +Whilst they had killed the dead. + +For he who sins a second time +Wakes a dead soul to pain, +And draws it from its spotted shroud, +And makes it bleed again, +And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, +And makes it bleed in vain! + +Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb +With crooked arrows starred, +Silently we went round and round +The slippery asphalte yard; +Silently we went round and round, +And no man spoke a word. + +Silently we went round and round, +And through each hollow mind +The Memory of dreadful things +Rushed like a dreadful wind, +And Horror stalked before each man, +And Terror crept behind. + +The Warders strutted up and down, +And kept their herd of brutes, +Their uniforms were spick and span, +And they wore their Sunday suits, +But we knew the work they had been at, +By the quicklime on their boots. + +For where a grave had opened wide, +There was no grave at all: +Only a stretch of mud and sand +By the hideous prison-wall, +And a little heap of burning lime, +That the man should have his pall. + +For he has a pall, this wretched man, +Such as few men can claim: +Deep down below a prison-yard, +Naked for greater shame, +He lies, with fetters on each foot, +Wrapt in a sheet of flame! + +And all the while the burning lime +Eats flesh and bone away, +It eats the brittle bone by night, +And the soft flesh by day, +It eats the flesh and bone by turns, +But it eats the heart alway. + +For three long years they will not sow +Or root or seedling there: +For three long years the unblessed spot +Will sterile be and bare, +And look upon the wondering sky +With unreproachful stare. + +They think a murderer's heart would taint +Each simple seed they sow. +It is not true! God's kindly earth +Is kindlier than men know, +And the red rose would but blow more red, +The white rose whiter blow. + +Out of his mouth a red, red rose! +Out of his heart a white! +For who can say by what strange way, +Christ brings His will to light, +Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore +Bloomed in the great Pope's sight? + +But neither milk-white rose nor red +May bloom in prison-air; +The shard, the pebble, and the flint, +Are what they give us there: +For flowers have been known to heal +A common man's despair. + +So never will wine-red rose or white, +Petal by petal, fall +On that stretch of mud and sand that lies +By the hideous prison-wall, +To tell the men who tramp the yard +That God's Son died for all. + +Yet though the hideous prison-wall +Still hems him round and round, +And a spirit may not walk by night +That is with fetters bound, +And a spirit may but weep that lies +In such unholy ground, + +He is at peace - this wretched man - +At peace, or will be soon: +There is no thing to make him mad, +Nor does Terror walk at noon, +For the lampless Earth in which he lies +Has neither Sun nor Moon. + +They hanged him as a beast is hanged: +They did not even toll +A requiem that might have brought +Rest to his startled soul, +But hurriedly they took him out, +And hid him in a hole. + +They stripped him of his canvas clothes, +And gave him to the flies: +They mocked the swollen purple throat, +And the stark and staring eyes: +And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud +In which their convict lies. + +The Chaplain would not kneel to pray +By his dishonoured grave: +Nor mark it with that blessed Cross +That Christ for sinners gave, +Because the man was one of those +Whom Christ came down to save. + +Yet all is well; he has but passed +To Life's appointed bourne: +And alien tears will fill for him +Pity's long-broken urn, +For his mourners will be outcast men, +And outcasts always mourn + + +V + + +I know not whether Laws be right, +Or whether Laws be wrong; +All that we know who lie in gaol +Is that the wall is strong; +And that each day is like a year, +A year whose days are long. + +But this I know, that every Law +That men have made for Man, +Since first Man took his brother's life, +And the sad world began, +But straws the wheat and saves the chaff +With a most evil fan. + +This too I know - and wise it were +If each could know the same - +That every prison that men build +Is built with bricks of shame, +And bound with bars lest Christ should see +How men their brothers maim. + +With bars they blur the gracious moon, +And blind the goodly sun: +And they do well to hide their Hell, +For in it things are done +That Son of God nor son of Man +Ever should look upon! + +The vilest deeds like poison weeds, +Bloom well in prison-air; +It is only what is good in Man +That wastes and withers there: +Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, +And the Warder is Despair. + +For they starve the little frightened child +Till it weeps both night and day: +And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, +And gibe the old and grey, +And some grow mad, and all grow bad, +And none a word may say. + +Each narrow cell in which we dwell +Is a foul and dark latrine, +And the fetid breath of living Death +Chokes up each grated screen, +And all, but Lust, is turned to dust +In Humanity's machine. + +The brackish water that we drink +Creeps with a loathsome slime, +And the bitter bread they weigh in scales +Is full of chalk and lime, +And Sleep will not lie down, but walks +Wild-eyed, and cries to Time. + +But though lean Hunger and green Thirst +Like asp with adder fight, +We have little care of prison fare, +For what chills and kills outright +Is that every stone one lifts by day +Becomes one's heart by night. + +With midnight always in one's heart, +And twilight in one's cell, +We turn the crank, or tear the rope, +Each in his separate Hell, +And the silence is more awful far +Than the sound of a brazen bell. + +And never a human voice comes near +To speak a gentle word: +And the eye that watches through the door +Is pitiless and hard: +And by all forgot, we rot and rot, +With soul and body marred. + +And thus we rust Life's iron chain +Degraded and alone: +And some men curse, and some men weep, +And some men make no moan: +But God's eternal Laws are kind +And break the heart of stone. + +And every human heart that breaks, +In prison-cell or yard, +Is as that broken box that gave +Its treasure to the Lord, +And filled the unclean leper's house +With the scent of costliest nard. + +Ah! happy they whose hearts can break +And peace of pardon win! +How else may man make straight his plan +And cleanse his soul from Sin? +How else but through a broken heart +May Lord Christ enter in? + +And he of the swollen purple throat, +And the stark and staring eyes, +Waits for the holy hands that took +The Thief to Paradise; +And a broken and a contrite heart +The Lord will not despise. + +The man in red who reads the Law +Gave him three weeks of life, +Three little weeks in which to heal +His soul of his soul's strife, +And cleanse from every blot of blood +The hand that held the knife. + +And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, +The hand that held the steel: +For only blood can wipe out blood, +And only tears can heal: +And the crimson stain that was of Cain +Became Christ's snow-white seal. + + +VI + + +In Reading gaol by Reading town +There is a pit of shame, +And in it lies a wretched man +Eaten by teeth of flame, +In a burning winding-sheet he lies, +And his grave has got no name. + +And there, till Christ call forth the dead, +In silence let him lie: +No need to waste the foolish tear, +Or heave the windy sigh: +The man had killed the thing he loved, +And so he had to die. + +And all men kill the thing they love, +By all let this be heard, +Some do it with a bitter look, +Some with a flattering word, +The coward does it with a kiss, +The brave man with a sword! + + + +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + + +[A version based on the original draft of the poem] + + +I + +He did not wear his scarlet coat, +For blood and wine are red, +And blood and wine were on his hands +When they found him with the dead, +The poor dead woman whom he loved, +And murdered in her bed. + +He walked amongst the Trial Men +In a suit of shabby grey; +A cricket cap was on his head, +And his step seemed light and gay; +But I never saw a man who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +I never saw a man who looked +With such a wistful eye +Upon that little tent of blue +Which prisoners call the sky, +And at every drifting cloud that went +With sails of silver by. + +I walked, with other souls in pain, +Within another ring, +And was wondering if the man had done +A great or little thing, +When a voice behind me whispered low, +'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.' + +Dear Christ! the very prison walls +Suddenly seemed to reel, +And the sky above my head became +Like a casque of scorching steel; +And, though I was a soul in pain, +My pain I could not feel. + +I only knew what hunted thought +Quickened his step, and why +He looked upon the garish day +With such a wistful eye; +The man had killed the thing he loved, +And so he had to die. + +Yet each man kills the thing he loves, +By each let this be heard, +Some do it with a bitter look, +Some with a flattering word, +The coward does it with a kiss, +The brave man with a sword! + +Some kill their love when they are young, +And some when they are old; +Some strangle with the hands of Lust, +Some with the hands of Gold: +The kindest use a knife, because +The dead so soon grow cold. + +Some love too little, some too long, +Some sell, and others buy; +Some do the deed with many tears, +And some without a sigh: +For each man kills the thing he loves, +Yet each man does not die. + +He does not die a death of shame +On a day of dark disgrace, +Nor have a noose about his neck, +Nor a cloth upon his face, +Nor drop feet foremost through the floor +Into an empty space. + +He does not wake at dawn to see +Dread figures throng his room, +The shivering Chaplain robed in white, +The Sheriff stern with gloom, +And the Governor all in shiny black, +With the yellow face of Doom. + +He does not rise in piteous haste +To put on convict-clothes, +While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, +and notes +Each new and nerve-twitched pose, +Fingering a watch whose little ticks +Are like horrible hammer-blows. + +He does not know that sickening thirst +That sands one's throat, before +The hangman with his gardener's gloves +Slips through the padded door, +And binds one with three leathern thongs, +That the throat may thirst no more. + +He does not bend his head to hear +The Burial Office read, +Nor, while the terror of his soul +Tells him he is not dead, +Cross his own coffin, as he moves +Into the hideous shed. + +He does not stare upon the air +Through a little roof of glass: +He does not pray with lips of clay +For his agony to pass; +Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek +The kiss of Caiaphas. + + +II + + +Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard, +In the suit of shabby grey: +His cricket cap was on his head, +And his step seemed light and gay, +But I never saw a man who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +He did not wring his hands nor weep, +Nor did he peek or pine, +But he drank the air as though it held +Some healthful anodyne; +With open mouth he drank the sun +As though it had been wine! + +And I and all the souls in pain, +Who tramped the other ring, +Forgot if we ourselves had done +A great or little thing, +And watched with gaze of dull amaze +The man who had to swing. + +So with curious eyes and sick surmise +We watched him day by day, +And wondered if each one of us +Would end the self-same way, +For none can tell to what red Hell +His sightless soul may stray. + +At last the dead man walked no more +Amongst the Trial Men, +And I knew that he was standing up +In the black dock's dreadful pen, +And that never would I see his face +In God's sweet world again. + +Like two doomed ships that pass in storm +We had crossed each other's way: +But we made no sign, we said no word, +We had no word to say; +For we did not meet in the holy night, +But in the shameful day. + +A prison wall was round us both, +Two outcast men we were: +The world had thrust us from its heart, +And God from out His care: +And the iron gin that waits for Sin +Had caught us in its snare. + + +III + + +In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard, +And the dripping wall is high, +So it was there he took the air +Beneath the leaden sky, +And by each side a Warder walked, +For fear the man might die. + +Or else he sat with those who watched +His anguish night and day; +Who watched him when he rose to weep, +And when he crouched to pray; +Who watched him lest himself should rob +Their scaffold of its prey. + +And twice a day he smoked his pipe, +And drank his quart of beer: +His soul was resolute, and held +No hiding-place for fear; +He often said that he was glad +The hangman's hands were near. + +But why he said so strange a thing +No Warder dared to ask: +For he to whom a watcher's doom +Is given as his task, +Must set a lock upon his lips, +And make his face a mask. + +With slouch and swing around the ring +We trod the Fools' Parade! +We did not care: we knew we were +The Devil's Own Brigade: +And shaven head and feet of lead +Make a merry masquerade. + +We tore the tarry rope to shreds +With blunt and bleeding nails; +We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, +And cleaned the shining rails: +And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, +And clattered with the pails. + +We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, +We turned the dusty drill: +We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, +And sweated on the mill: +But in the heart of every man +Terror was lying still. + +So still it lay that every day +Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: +And we forgot the bitter lot +That waits for fool and knave, +Till once, as we tramped in from work, +We passed an open grave. + +Right in we went, with soul intent +On Death and Dread and Doom: +The hangman, with his little bag, +Went shuffling through the gloom: +And each man trembled as he crept +Into his numbered tomb. + +That night the empty corridors +Were full of forms of Fear, +And up and down the iron town +Stole feet we could not hear, +And through the bars that hide the stars +White faces seemed to peer. + +But there is no sleep when men must weep +Who never yet have wept: +So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave - +That endless vigil kept, +And through each brain on hands of pain +Another's terror crept. + +Alas! it is a fearful thing +To feel another's guilt! +For, right within, the sword of Sin +Pierced to its poisoned hilt, +And as molten lead were the tears we shed +For the blood we had not spilt. + +The Warders with their shoes of felt +Crept by each padlocked door, +And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, +Grey figures on the floor, +And wondered why men knelt to pray +Who never prayed before. + +The morning wind began to moan, +But still the night went on: +Through its giant loom the web of gloom +Crept till each thread was spun: +And, as we prayed, we grew afraid +Of the Justice of the Sun. + +At last I saw the shadowed bars, +Like a lattice wrought in lead, +Move right across the whitewashed wall +That faced my three-plank bed, +And I knew that somewhere in the world +God's dreadful dawn was red. + +At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, +At seven all was still, +But the sough and swing of a mighty wing +The prison seemed to fill, +For the Lord of Death with icy breath +Had entered in to kill. + +He did not pass in purple pomp, +Nor ride a moon-white steed. +Three yards of cord and a sliding board +Are all the gallows' need: +So with rope of shame the Herald came +To do the secret deed. + +We waited for the stroke of eight: +Each tongue was thick with thirst: +For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate +That makes a man accursed, +And Fate will use a running noose +For the best man and the worst. + +We had no other thing to do, +Save to wait for the sign to come: +So, like things of stone in a valley lone, +Quiet we sat and dumb: +But each man's heart beat thick and quick, +Like a madman on a drum! + +With sudden shock the prison-clock +Smote on the shivering air, +And from all the gaol rose up a wail +Of impotent despair, +Like the sound that frightened marshes hear +From some leper in his lair. + +And as one sees most fearful things +In the crystal of a dream, +We saw the greasy hempen rope +Hooked to the blackened beam, +And heard the prayer the hangman's snare +Strangled into a scream. + +And all the woe that moved him so +That he gave that bitter cry, +And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, +None knew so well as I: +For he who lives more lives than one +More deaths than one must die. + + +IV + + +There is no chapel on the day +On which they hang a man: +The Chaplain's heart is far too sick, +Or his face is far too wan, +Or there is that written in his eyes +Which none should look upon. + +So they kept us close till nigh on noon, +And then they rang the bell, +And the Warders with their jingling keys +Opened each listening cell, +And down the iron stair we tramped, +Each from his separate Hell. + +Out into God's sweet air we went, +But not in wonted way, +For this man's face was white with fear, +And that man's face was grey, +And I never saw sad men who looked +So wistfully at the day. + +I never saw sad men who looked +With such a wistful eye +Upon that little tent of blue +We prisoners called the sky, +And at every careless cloud that passed +In happy freedom by. + +But there were those amongst us all +Who walked with downcast head, +And knew that, had each got his due, +They should have died instead: +He had but killed a thing that lived, +Whilst they had killed the dead. + +For he who sins a second time +Wakes a dead soul to pain, +And draws it from its spotted shroud, +And makes it bleed again, +And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, +And makes it bleed in vain! + +Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb +With crooked arrows starred, +Silently we went round and round +The slippery asphalte yard; +Silently we went round and round, +And no man spoke a word. + +Silently we went round and round, +And through each hollow mind +The Memory of dreadful things +Rushed like a dreadful wind, +And Horror stalked before each man, +And Terror crept behind. + +The Warders strutted up and down, +And kept their herd of brutes, +Their uniforms were spick and span, +And they wore their Sunday suits, +But we knew the work they had been at, +By the quicklime on their boots. + +For where a grave had opened wide, +There was no grave at all: +Only a stretch of mud and sand +By the hideous prison-wall, +And a little heap of burning lime, +That the man should have his pall. + +For he has a pall, this wretched man, +Such as few men can claim: +Deep down below a prison-yard, +Naked for greater shame, +He lies, with fetters on each foot, +Wrapt in a sheet of flame! + +For three long years they will not sow +Or root or seedling there: +For three long years the unblessed spot +Will sterile be and bare, +And look upon the wondering sky +With unreproachful stare. + +They think a murderer's heart would taint +Each simple seed they sow. +It is not true! God's kindly earth +Is kindlier than men know, +And the red rose would but blow more red, +The white rose whiter blow. + +Out of his mouth a red, red rose! +Out of his heart a white! +For who can say by what strange way, +Christ brings His will to light, +Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore +Bloomed in the great Pope's sight? + +But neither milk-white rose nor red +May bloom in prison-air; +The shard, the pebble, and the flint, +Are what they give us there: +For flowers have been known to heal +A common man's despair. + +So never will wine-red rose or white, +Petal by petal, fall +On that stretch of mud and sand that lies +By the hideous prison-wall, +To tell the men who tramp the yard +That God's Son died for all. + +He is at peace - this wretched man - +At peace, or will be soon: +There is no thing to make him mad, +Nor does Terror walk at noon, +For the lampless Earth in which he lies +Has neither Sun nor Moon. + +The Chaplain would not kneel to pray +By his dishonoured grave: +Nor mark it with that blessed Cross +That Christ for sinners gave, +Because the man was one of those +Whom Christ came down to save. + +Yet all is well; he has but passed +To Life's appointed bourne: +And alien tears will fill for him +Pity's long-broken urn, +For his mourners will be outcast men, +And outcasts always mourn. + + + +Poem: Ave Imperatrix + + + +Set in this stormy Northern sea, +Queen of these restless fields of tide, +England! what shall men say of thee, +Before whose feet the worlds divide? + +The earth, a brittle globe of glass, +Lies in the hollow of thy hand, +And through its heart of crystal pass, +Like shadows through a twilight land, + +The spears of crimson-suited war, +The long white-crested waves of fight, +And all the deadly fires which are +The torches of the lords of Night. + +The yellow leopards, strained and lean, +The treacherous Russian knows so well, +With gaping blackened jaws are seen +Leap through the hail of screaming shell. + +The strong sea-lion of England's wars +Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, +To battle with the storm that mars +The stars of England's chivalry. + +The brazen-throated clarion blows +Across the Pathan's reedy fen, +And the high steeps of Indian snows +Shake to the tread of armed men. + +And many an Afghan chief, who lies +Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, +Clutches his sword in fierce surmise +When on the mountain-side he sees + +The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes +To tell how he hath heard afar +The measured roll of English drums +Beat at the gates of Kandahar. + +For southern wind and east wind meet +Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, +England with bare and bloody feet +Climbs the steep road of wide empire. + +O lonely Himalayan height, +Grey pillar of the Indian sky, +Where saw'st thou last in clanging flight +Our winged dogs of Victory? + +The almond-groves of Samarcand, +Bokhara, where red lilies blow, +And Oxus, by whose yellow sand +The grave white-turbaned merchants go: + +And on from thence to Ispahan, +The gilded garden of the sun, +Whence the long dusty caravan +Brings cedar wood and vermilion; + +And that dread city of Cabool +Set at the mountain's scarped feet, +Whose marble tanks are ever full +With water for the noonday heat: + +Where through the narrow straight Bazaar +A little maid Circassian +Is led, a present from the Czar +Unto some old and bearded Khan, - + +Here have our wild war-eagles flown, +And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; +But the sad dove, that sits alone +In England - she hath no delight. + +In vain the laughing girl will lean +To greet her love with love-lit eyes: +Down in some treacherous black ravine, +Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. + +And many a moon and sun will see +The lingering wistful children wait +To climb upon their father's knee; +And in each house made desolate + +Pale women who have lost their lord +Will kiss the relics of the slain - +Some tarnished epaulette - some sword - +Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. + +For not in quiet English fields +Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, +Where we might deck their broken shields +With all the flowers the dead love best. + +For some are by the Delhi walls, +And many in the Afghan land, +And many where the Ganges falls +Through seven mouths of shifting sand. + +And some in Russian waters lie, +And others in the seas which are +The portals to the East, or by +The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. + +O wandering graves! O restless sleep! +O silence of the sunless day! +O still ravine! O stormy deep! +Give up your prey! Give up your prey! + +And thou whose wounds are never healed, +Whose weary race is never won, +O Cromwell's England! must thou yield +For every inch of ground a son? + +Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, +Change thy glad song to song of pain; +Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, +And will not yield them back again. + +Wave and wild wind and foreign shore +Possess the flower of English land - +Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, +Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. + +What profit now that we have bound +The whole round world with nets of gold, +If hidden in our heart is found +The care that groweth never old? + +What profit that our galleys ride, +Pine-forest-like, on every main? +Ruin and wreck are at our side, +Grim warders of the House of Pain. + +Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? +Where is our English chivalry? +Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, +And sobbing waves their threnody. + +O loved ones lying far away, +What word of love can dead lips send! +O wasted dust! O senseless clay! +Is this the end! is this the end! + +Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead +To vex their solemn slumber so; +Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, +Up the steep road must England go, + +Yet when this fiery web is spun, +Her watchmen shall descry from far +The young Republic like a sun +Rise from these crimson seas of war. + + + +Poem: To My Wife - With A Copy Of My Poems + + + +I can write no stately proem +As a prelude to my lay; +From a poet to a poem +I would dare to say. + +For if of these fallen petals +One to you seem fair, +Love will waft it till it settles +On your hair. + +And when wind and winter harden +All the loveless land, +It will whisper of the garden, +You will understand. + + + +Poem: Magdalen Walks + + + +[After gaining the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek at Trinity +College, Dublin, in 1874, Oscar Wilde proceeded to Oxford, where he +obtained a demyship at Magdalen College. He is the only real poet +on the books of that institution.] + + +The little white clouds are racing over the sky, +And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, +The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch +Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. + +A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze, +The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth, +The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth, +Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. + +And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, +And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, +And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire +Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. + +And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love +Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, +And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen +Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove. + +See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, +Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, +And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! +The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. + + + +Poem: Theocritus - A Villanelle + + + +O singer of Persephone! +In the dim meadows desolate +Dost thou remember Sicily? + +Still through the ivy flits the bee +Where Amaryllis lies in state; +O Singer of Persephone! + +Simaetha calls on Hecate +And hears the wild dogs at the gate; +Dost thou remember Sicily? + +Still by the light and laughing sea +Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate; +O Singer of Persephone! + +And still in boyish rivalry +Young Daphnis challenges his mate; +Dost thou remember Sicily? + +Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, +For thee the jocund shepherds wait; +O Singer of Persephone! +Dost thou remember Sicily? + + + +Poem: Greece + + + +The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky +Burned like a heated opal through the air; +We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair +For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. +From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye +Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, +Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak, +And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. +The flapping of the sail against the mast, +The ripple of the water on the side, +The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern, +The only sounds:- when 'gan the West to burn, +And a red sun upon the seas to ride, +I stood upon the soil of Greece at last! + +KATAKOLO. + + + +Poem: Portia + + + +(To Ellen Terry. Written at the Lyceum Theatre) + + +I marvel not Bassanio was so bold +To peril all he had upon the lead, +Or that proud Aragon bent low his head +Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold: +For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold +Which is more golden than the golden sun +No woman Veronese looked upon +Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. +Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield +The sober-suited lawyer's gown you donned, +And would not let the laws of Venice yield +Antonio's heart to that accursed Jew - +O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: +I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. + + + +Poem: Fabien Dei Franchi + + + +(To my Friend Henry Irving) + + +The silent room, the heavy creeping shade, +The dead that travel fast, the opening door, +The murdered brother rising through the floor, +The ghost's white fingers on thy shoulders laid, +And then the lonely duel in the glade, +The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, +Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o'er, - +These things are well enough, - but thou wert made +For more august creation! frenzied Lear +Should at thy bidding wander on the heath +With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo +For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear +Pluck Richard's recreant dagger from its sheath - +Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare's lips to blow! + + + +Poem: Phedre + + + +(To Sarah Bernhardt) + + +How vain and dull this common world must seem +To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked +At Florence with Mirandola, or walked +Through the cool olives of the Academe: +Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream +For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played +With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade +Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. + +Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay +Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again +Back to this common world so dull and vain, +For thou wert weary of the sunless day, +The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, +The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. + + + +Poem: Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel + + + +Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, +Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, +Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love +Than terrors of red flame and thundering. +The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: +A bird at evening flying to its nest +Tells me of One who had no place of rest: +I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. +Come rather on some autumn afternoon, +When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, +And the fields echo to the gleaner's song, +Come when the splendid fulness of the moon +Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, +And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long. + + + +Poem: Ave Maria Gratia Plena + + + +Was this His coming! I had hoped to see +A scene of wondrous glory, as was told +Of some great God who in a rain of gold +Broke open bars and fell on Danae: +Or a dread vision as when Semele +Sickening for love and unappeased desire +Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire +Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly: +With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, +And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand +Before this supreme mystery of Love: +Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face, +An angel with a lily in his hand, +And over both the white wings of a Dove. + +FLORENCE. + + + +Poem: Libertatis Sacra Fames + + + +Albeit nurtured in democracy, +And liking best that state republican +Where every man is Kinglike and no man +Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, +Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, +Better the rule of One, whom all obey, +Than to let clamorous demagogues betray +Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. +Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane +Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street +For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign +Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, +Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, +Or Murder with his silent bloody feet. + + + +Poem: Roses And Rue + + + +(To L. L.) + + +Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, +Were it worth the pleasure, +We never could learn love's song, +We are parted too long. + +Could the passionate past that is fled +Call back its dead, +Could we live it all over again, +Were it worth the pain! + +I remember we used to meet +By an ivied seat, +And you warbled each pretty word +With the air of a bird; + +And your voice had a quaver in it, +Just like a linnet, +And shook, as the blackbird's throat +With its last big note; + +And your eyes, they were green and grey +Like an April day, +But lit into amethyst +When I stooped and kissed; + +And your mouth, it would never smile +For a long, long while, +Then it rippled all over with laughter +Five minutes after. + +You were always afraid of a shower, +Just like a flower: +I remember you started and ran +When the rain began. + +I remember I never could catch you, +For no one could match you, +You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, +Little wings to your feet. + +I remember your hair - did I tie it? +For it always ran riot - +Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: +These things are old. + +I remember so well the room, +And the lilac bloom +That beat at the dripping pane +In the warm June rain; + +And the colour of your gown, +It was amber-brown, +And two yellow satin bows +From your shoulders rose. + +And the handkerchief of French lace +Which you held to your face - +Had a small tear left a stain? +Or was it the rain? + +On your hand as it waved adieu +There were veins of blue; +In your voice as it said good-bye +Was a petulant cry, + +'You have only wasted your life.' +(Ah, that was the knife!) +When I rushed through the garden gate +It was all too late. + +Could we live it over again, +Were it worth the pain, +Could the passionate past that is fled +Call back its dead! + +Well, if my heart must break, +Dear love, for your sake, +It will break in music, I know, +Poets' hearts break so. + +But strange that I was not told +That the brain can hold +In a tiny ivory cell +God's heaven and hell. + + + +Poem: From 'The Garden Of Eros' + + + +[In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the +nineteenth century. He hails Keats and Shelley and some of the +poets and artists who were his contemporaries, although his +seniors, as the torch-bearers of the intellectual life. Among +these are Swinburne, William Morris, Rossetti, and Brune-Jones.] + + +Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left +One silver voice to sing his threnody, {1} +But ah! too soon of it we were bereft +When on that riven night and stormy sea +Panthea claimed her singer as her own, +And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk +alone, + +Save for that fiery heart, that morning star {2} +Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye +Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war +The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy +Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring +The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing, + +And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, +And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot +In passionless and fierce virginity +Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute +Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, +And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still. + +And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, +And sung the Galilaean's requiem, +That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine +He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him +Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, +And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror. + +Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, +It is not quenched the torch of poesy, +The star that shook above the Eastern hill +Holds unassailed its argent armoury +From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight - +O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night, + +Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, +Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, +With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled +The weary soul of man in troublous need, +And from the far and flowerless fields of ice +Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise. + +We know them all, Gudrun the strong men's bride, +Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, +How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, +And what enchantment held the king in thrall +When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers +That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours, + +Long listless summer hours when the noon +Being enamoured of a damask rose +Forgets to journey westward, till the moon +The pale usurper of its tribute grows +From a thin sickle to a silver shield +And chides its loitering car - how oft, in some cool grassy field + +Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, +At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come +Almost before the blackbird finds a mate +And overstay the swallow, and the hum +Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, +Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves, + +And through their unreal woes and mimic pain +Wept for myself, and so was purified, +And in their simple mirth grew glad again; +For as I sailed upon that pictured tide +The strength and splendour of the storm was mine +Without the storm's red ruin, for the singer is divine; + + +The little laugh of water falling down +Is not so musical, the clammy gold +Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town +Has less of sweetness in it, and the old +Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady +Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony. + +Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! +Although the cheating merchants of the mart +With iron roads profane our lovely isle, +And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, +Ay! though the crowded factories beget +The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet! + +For One at least there is, - He bears his name +From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, {3} - +Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame +To light thine altar; He {4} too loves thee well, +Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare, +And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair, + +Loves thee so well, that all the World for him +A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, +And Sorrow take a purple diadem, +Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair +Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be +Even in anguish beautiful; - such is the empery + +Which Painters hold, and such the heritage +This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, +Being a better mirror of his age +In all his pity, love, and weariness, +Than those who can but copy common things, +And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings. + +But they are few, and all romance has flown, +And men can prophesy about the sun, +And lecture on his arrows - how, alone, +Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, +How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, +And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head. + + + +Poem: The Harlot's House + + + +We caught the tread of dancing feet, +We loitered down the moonlit street, +And stopped beneath the harlot's house. + +Inside, above the din and fray, +We heard the loud musicians play +The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss. + +Like strange mechanical grotesques, +Making fantastic arabesques, +The shadows raced across the blind. + +We watched the ghostly dancers spin +To sound of horn and violin, +Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. + +Like wire-pulled automatons, +Slim silhouetted skeletons +Went sidling through the slow quadrille, + +Then took each other by the hand, +And danced a stately saraband; +Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. + +Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed +A phantom lover to her breast, +Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. + +Sometimes a horrible marionette +Came out, and smoked its cigarette +Upon the steps like a live thing. + +Then, turning to my love, I said, +'The dead are dancing with the dead, +The dust is whirling with the dust.' + +But she - she heard the violin, +And left my side, and entered in: +Love passed into the house of lust. + +Then suddenly the tune went false, +The dancers wearied of the waltz, +The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. + +And down the long and silent street, +The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, +Crept like a frightened girl. + + + +Poem: From 'The Burden Of Itys' + + + +This English Thames is holier far than Rome, +Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea +Breaking across the woodland, with the foam +Of meadow-sweet and white anemone +To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there +Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! + +Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take +Yon creamy lily for their pavilion +Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake +A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, +His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old +Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold. + +The wind the restless prisoner of the trees +Does well for Palaestrina, one would say +The mighty master's hands were on the keys +Of the Maria organ, which they play +When early on some sapphire Easter morn +In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne + +From his dark House out to the Balcony +Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, +Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy +To toss their silver lances in the air, +And stretching out weak hands to East and West +In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest. + +Is not yon lingering orange after-glow +That stays to vex the moon more fair than all +Rome's lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago +I knelt before some crimson Cardinal +Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, +And now - those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine. + +The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous +With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring +Through this cool evening than the odorous +Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, +When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, +And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn and vine. + +Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Mass +Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird +Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass +I see that throbbing throat which once I heard +On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, +Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea. + +Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves +At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, +And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves +Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe +To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait +Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate. + +And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, +And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, +And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees +That round and round the linden blossoms play; +And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, +And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall, + +And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring +While the last violet loiters by the well, +And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing +The song of Linus through a sunny dell +Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold +And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold. + +* * * * * + +It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, +No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, +The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, +And from the copse left desolate and bare +Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, +Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody + +So sad, that one might think a human heart +Brake in each separate note, a quality +Which music sometimes has, being the Art +Which is most nigh to tears and memory; +Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? +Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here, + +Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, +No woven web of bloody heraldries, +But mossy dells for roving comrades made, +Warm valleys where the tired student lies +With half-shut book, and many a winding walk +Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. + +The harmless rabbit gambols with its young +Across the trampled towing-path, where late +A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng +Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; +The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, +Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds + +Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out +Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock +Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout +Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, +And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, +And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill. + +The heron passes homeward to the mere, +The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, +Gold world by world the silent stars appear, +And like a blossom blown before the breeze +A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, +Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. + +She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, +She knows Endymion is not far away; +'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed +Which has no message of its own to play, +So pipes another's bidding, it is I, +Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. + +Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill +About the sombre woodland seems to cling +Dying in music, else the air is still, +So still that one might hear the bat's small wing +Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell +Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell's brimming cell. + +And far away across the lengthening wold, +Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, +Magdalen's tall tower tipped with tremulous gold +Marks the long High Street of the little town, +And warns me to return; I must not wait, +Hark ! 't is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church +gate. + + + +Poem: Flower of Love + + + +Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault +was, had I not been made of common clay +I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed +yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day. + +From the wildness of my wasted passion I had +struck a better, clearer song, +Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled +with some Hydra-headed wrong. + +Had my lips been smitten into music by the +kisses that but made them bleed, +You had walked with Bice and the angels on +that verdant and enamelled mead. + +I had trod the road which Dante treading saw +the suns of seven circles shine, +Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, +as they opened to the Florentine. + +And the mighty nations would have crowned +me, who am crownless now and without name, +And some orient dawn had found me kneeling +on the threshold of the House of Fame. + +I had sat within that marble circle where the +oldest bard is as the young, +And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the +lyre's strings are ever strung. + +Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out +the poppy-seeded wine, +With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, +clasped the hand of noble love in mine. + +And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms +brush the burnished bosom of the dove, +Two young lovers lying in an orchard would +have read the story of our love; + +Would have read the legend of my passion, +known the bitter secret of my heart, +Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as +we two are fated now to part. + +For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by +the cankerworm of truth, +And no hand can gather up the fallen withered +petals of the rose of youth. + +Yet I am not sorry that I loved you - ah! +what else had I a boy to do, - +For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the +silent-footed years pursue. + +Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and +when once the storm of youth is past, +Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death +the silent pilot comes at last. + +And within the grave there is no pleasure, +for the blindworm battens on the root, +And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree +of Passion bears no fruit. + +Ah! what else had I to do but love you? +God's own mother was less dear to me, +And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an +argent lily from the sea. + +I have made my choice, have lived my +poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days, +I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better +than the poet's crown of bays. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} Shelley +{2} Swinburne +{3} Rossetti +{4} Burne-Jones + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde + diff --git a/old/spoow10.zip b/old/spoow10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8632415 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/spoow10.zip |