Oscar Wilde (1854–1900).  Poems.  1881.

Contents


Helas


Eleutheria:—
Sonnet to Liberty
Ave Imperatrix
To Milton
Louis Napoleon
Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria
Quantum Mutata
Libertatis Sacra Fames
Theoretikos


The Garden of Eros


Rosa Mystica:—
Requiescat
Sonnet on approaching Italy
San Miniato
Ave Maria plena Gratia
Italia
Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa
Rome Unvisited
Urbs Sacra Æterna
Sonnet on hearing the Dies Iræ sung in the Sistine Chapel
Easter Day
E Tenebris
Vita Nuova
Madonna Mia
The New Helen


The Burden of Itys
Impression du Matin
Magdalen Walks
Athanasia
Serenade
Endymion
La Bella Donna della mia Mente
Chanson
Charmides


Impressions:—
Les Silhouettes
La Fuite de la Lune
The Grave of Keats
Theocritus: a Villanelle
In the Gold Room: a Harmony
Ballade de Marguerite
The Dole of the King’s Daughter
Amor Intellectualis
Santa Decca
A Vision
Impression du Voyage
The Grave of Shelley
By the Arno


Impressions du Théatre:—
Fabien dei Franchi
Phêdre
Portia
Henrietta Maria
Camma


Panthea
Impression: Le Reveillon
At Verona
Apologia
Quia Multum amavi
Silentium Amoris
Her Voice
My Voice
Tædium Vitæ
Humanitad
[Greek]

1. Helas



TO drift with every passion till my soul       
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,       
Is it for this that I have given away       
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?—       
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll            5   
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday       
With idle songs for pipe and virelay       
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.       
Surely there was a time I might have trod       
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance     10   
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:       
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod       
I did but touch the honey of romance—       
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

2. Sonnet to Liberty



NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes       
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,       
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,—       
But that the roar of thy Democracies,       
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,            5   
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea,—       
And give my rage a brother——! Liberty!       
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries       
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings       
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades     10   
Rob nations of their rights inviolate       
And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet,       
These Christs that die upon the barricades,       
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

3. 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,            5   
  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,     10   
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     15   
  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 star of England’s chivalry.     20   
     
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     25   
  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     30   
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     35   
  Climbs the steep road of wide empire.       
     
O lonely Himalayan height,       
  Grey pillar of the Indian sky,       
Where saw’st thou last in clanging fight       
  Our wingèd dogs of Victory?     40   
     
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,     45   
  The gilded garden of the sun,       
Whence the long dusty caravan       
  Brings cedar and vermilion;       
     
And that dread city of Cabool       
  Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet,     50   
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     55   
  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.     60   
     
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     65   
  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—     70   
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     75   
  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.     80   
     
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!     85   
  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,     90   
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,     95   
  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.    100   
     
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,    105   
  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?    110   
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!    115   
  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,    120   
     
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.

4. To Milton



MILTON! I think thy spirit hath passed away       
  From these white cliffs, and high-embattled towers;       
  This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours       
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,       
And the age changed unto a mimic play            5   
  Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:       
  For all our pomp and pageantry and powers       
We are but fit to delve the common clay,       
Seeing this little isle on which we stand,       
  This England, this sea-lion of the sea,     10   
  By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,       
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land       
  Which bare a triple empire in her hand       
  When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!   

5. Louis Napoleon



EAGLE of Austerlitz! where were thy wings       
    When far away upon a barbarous strand,       
    In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,       
Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!       
     
Poor boy! thou wilt not flaunt thy cloak of red,            5   
    Nor ride in state through Paris in the van       
    Of thy returning legions, but instead       
Thy mother France, free and republican,       
     
Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place       
    The better laurels of a soldier’s crown,     10   
    That not dishonoured should thy soul go down       
To tell the mighty Sire of thy race       
     
That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,       
    And found it sweeter than his honied bees,       
    And that the giant wave Democracy     15   
Breaks on the shores where Kings lay crouched at ease.   

6. Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria



CHRIST, dost thou live indeed? or are thy bones       
Still straightened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?       
And was thy Rising only dreamed by Her       
Whose love of thee for all her sin atones?       
For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,            5   
The priests who call upon thy name are slain,       
Dost thou not hear the bitter wail of pain       
From those whose children lie upon the stones?       
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom       
Curtains the land, and through the starless night     10   
Over thy Cross the Crescent moon I see!       
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb       
Come down, O Son of Man! and show thy might,       
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!   

7. Quantum Mutata



THERE was a time in Europe long ago       
  When no man died for freedom anywhere,       
  But England’s lion leaping from its lair       
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so       
While England could a great Republic show.            5   
  Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care       
  Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair       
The Pontiff in his painted portico       
Trembled before our stern ambassadors.       
  How comes it then that from such high estate     10   
  We have thus fallen, save that Luxury       
With barren merchandise piles up the gate       
Where nobler thoughts and deeds should enter by:       
  Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.

8. 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,            5   
  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     10   
  For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign       
Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,       
  Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,       
  And Murder with his silent bloody feet.

9. Theoretikos



THIS mighty empire hath but feet of clay:       
  Of all its ancient chivalry and might       
  Our little island is forsaken quite:       
Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,       
And from its hills that voice hath passed away            5   
  Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,       
  Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit       
For this vile traffic-house, where day by day       
  Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,       
  And the rude people rage with ignorant cries     10   
Against an heritage of centuries.       
  It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art       
  And loftiest culture I would stand apart,       
Neither for God, nor for his enemies.