No More Learning

It is absolutely
necessary for me to find it somewhere.

All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences
of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the
box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of
detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society,
as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer;
but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have
clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence
I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may
walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my
footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in
great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.




POEMS
BY
OSCAR WILDE


WITH THE BALLAD OF
READING GAOL

* * * * *

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W. C.
LONDON

_Twelfth Edition_

_First Published_--
_Ravenna_ _1878_
_Poems_ _1881_
,, _Fifth Edition_ _1882_
_The Sphinx_ _1894_
_The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ _1898_
_First Issued by Methuen and Co. _ (_Limited _March 1908_
Editions on Handmade Paper and Japanese Vellum_)
_Seventh Edition_ (_F'cap. 8vo_). _September 1909_
_Eighth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _November 1909_
_Ninth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _December 1909_
_Tenth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _November 1910_
_Eleventh Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _December 1911_
_Twelfth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _April 1913_



NOTE


_This collection of Wilde's Poems contains the volume of_ 1881 _in its
entirety_, '_The Sphinx_', '_The Ballad of Reading Gaol_,' _and_
'_Ravenna_. ' _Of the Uncollected Poems published in the Uniform Edition
of_ 1908, _a few_, _including the Translations from the Greek and the
Polish_, _are omitted_. _Two new poems_, '_Desespoir_' _and_ '_Pan_,'_
which I have recently discovered in manuscript_, _are now printed for the
first time_.
_Particulars as to the original publication of each poem
will be found in_ '_A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde_,' _by
Stuart Mason_, _London_ 1907.

_ROBERT ROSS_.




CONTENTS

POEMS (1881): PAGE
Helas! 3
ELEUTHERIA:
Sonnet To Liberty 7
Ave Imperatrix 8
To Milton 14
Louis Napoleon 15
Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in 16
Bulgaria
Quantum Mutata 17
Libertatis Sacra Fames 18
Theoretikos 19
THE GARDEN OF EROS 21
ROSA MYSTICA:
Requiescat 39
Sonnet on approaching Italy 40
San Miniato 41
Ave Maria Gratia Plena 42
Italia 43
Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa 44
Rome Unvisited 45
Urbs Sacra AEterna 49
Sonnet on hearing the Dies Irae sung in the Sistine 50
Chapel
Easter Day 51
E Tenebris 52
Vita Nuova 53
Madonna Mia 54
The New Helen 55
THE BURDEN OF ITYS 61
WIND FLOWERS:
Impression du Matin 83
Magdalen Walks 84
Athanasia 86
Serenade 89
Endymion 91
La Bella Donna della mia Mente 93
Chanson 95
CHARMIDES 97
FLOWERS OF GOLD:
Impressions: I. Les Silhouettes 135
II. La Fuite de la Lune 136
The Grave of Keats 137
Theocritus: A Villanelle 138
In the Gold Room: A Harmony 139
Ballade de Marguerite 140
The Dole of the King's Daughter 143
Amor Intellectualis 145
Santa Decca 146
A Vision 147
Impression de Voyage 148
The Grave of Shelley 149
By the Arno 150
IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE:
Fabien dei Franchi 155
Phedre 156
Sonnets written at the Lyceum Theatre
I. Portia 157
II. Queen Henrietta Maria 158
III. Camma 159
PANTHEA 161
THE FOURTH MOVEMENT:
Impression: Le Reveillon 175
At Verona 176
Apologia 177
Quia Multum Amavi 179
Silentium Amoris 180
Her Voice 181
My Voice 183
Taedium Vitae 184
HUMANITAD 185
FLOWER OF LOVE:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?