Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol

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_, ‘_Désespoir_’ _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 Hélas! 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 Æterna 49 Sonnet on hearing the Dies Iræ 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 THÉÀTRE: Fabien dei Franchi 155 Phèdre 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 Réveillon 175 At Verona 176 Apologia 177 Quia Multum Amavi 179 Silentium Amoris 180 Her Voice 181 My Voice 183 Tædium Vitæ 184 HUMANITAD 185 FLOWER OF LOVE: ΓΛΥΚΥΠΙΚΡΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ 211 UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1876–1893): From Spring Days to Winter 217 Tristitiæ 219 The True Knowledge 220 Impressions: I. 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 Décoratives: 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 Désespoir 242 Pan: Double Villanelle 243 THE SPHINX (1894) 245 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (1898) 269 RAVENNA (1878) 305 POEMS HÉLAS! 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 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;