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 treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
Leap through the hail of screaming shell.
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
Le Jardin 221
II. La Mer 222
Under the Balcony 223
The Harlot's House 225
Le Jardin des Tuileries 227
On the Sale by Auction of Keats' Love Letters 228
The New Remorse 229
Fantasisies Decoratives: I. Le Panneau 230
II. Les Ballons 232
Canzonet 233
Symphony in Yellow 235
In the Forest 236
To my Wife: With a Copy of my Poems 237
With a Copy of 'A House of Pomegranates' 238
Roses and Rue 239
Desespoir 242
Pan: Double Villanelle 243
THE SPHINX (1894) 245
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (1898) 269
RAVENNA (1878) 305
POEMS
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_
_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_
_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_?
ELEUTHERIA
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,
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
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.
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!
II. La Mer 222
Under the Balcony 223
The Harlot's House 225
Le Jardin des Tuileries 227
On the Sale by Auction of Keats' Love Letters 228
The New Remorse 229
Fantasisies Decoratives: I. Le Panneau 230
II. Les Ballons 232
Canzonet 233
Symphony in Yellow 235
In the Forest 236
To my Wife: With a Copy of my Poems 237
With a Copy of 'A House of Pomegranates' 238
Roses and Rue 239
Desespoir 242
Pan: Double Villanelle 243
THE SPHINX (1894) 245
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (1898) 269
RAVENNA (1878) 305
POEMS
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_
_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_
_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_?
ELEUTHERIA
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,
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
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.
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!
