Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

  Or wondering lovers, or rose-chaliced swoon,

  Or hair made golden with the lily’s gold.

  HUMANITAD

  It is full winter now: the trees are bare,

  Save where the cattle huddle from the cold

  Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear

  The Autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold

  Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true

  To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

  From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay

  Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain

  Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day

  From the low meadows up the narrow lane;

  Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep

  Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

  From the shut stable to the frozen stream

  And back again disconsolate, and miss

  The bawling shepherds and the noisy team ;

  And overhead in circling listlessness

  The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,

  Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the icepools crack

  Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds

  And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,

  And hoots to see the moon; across the meads

  Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;

  And a stray seamew with its fretful cry

  Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

  Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings

  His load of faggots from the chilly byre,

  And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings

  The sappy billets on the waning fire,

  And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare

  His children at their play; and yet, – the Spring is in the air,

  Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,

  And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again

  With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,

  For with the first warm kisses of the rain

  The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,

  And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

  From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,

  And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs

  Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly

  Across our path at evening, and the suns

  Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see

  Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

  Dance through the hedges till the early rose,

  (That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)

  Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose

  The little quivering disk of golden fire

  Which the bees know so well, for with it come

  Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffodillies all in bloom.

  Then up and down the field the sower goes,

  While close behind the laughing younker scares

  With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,

  And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,

  And on the grass the creamy blossom falls

  In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

  Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons

  Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,

  That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons

  With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine

  In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed

  And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

  Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,

  And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,

  Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy

  Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,

  And violets getting overbold withdraw

  From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

  O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!

  Soon will your Queen in daisy-flowered smock

  And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,

  Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock

  Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon

  Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

  Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,

  The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns

  Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture

  Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations

  With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,

  And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

  Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous Spring!

  That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,

  And to the kid its little horns, and bring

  The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,

  Where is that old nepenthe which of yore

  Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

  There was a time when any common bird

  Could make me sing in unison, a time

  When all the strings of boyish life were stirred

  To quick response or more melodious rhyme

  By every forest idyll; – do I change?

  Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

  Nay, nay, thou art the same: ‘tis I who seek

  To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,

  And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek

  Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;

  Fool! Shall each wronged and restless spirit dare

  To taint such wine with the salt poison of his own despair!

  Thou art the same: ‘tis I whose wretched soul

  Takes discontent to be its paramour,

  And gives its kingdom to the rude control

  Of what should be its servitor, – for sure

  Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea

  Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

  To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect

  In natural honour, not to bend the knee

  In profitless prostrations whose effect

  Is by itself condemned, what alchemy

  Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed

  Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued.

  The minor chord which ends the harmony,

  And for its answering brother waits in vain

  Sobbing for incompleted melody,

  Dies a Swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,

  A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,

  Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

  The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,

  The little dust stored in the narrow urn,

  The gentle XAIPE1 of the Attic tomb, –

  Were not these better far than to return

  To my old fitful restless malady,

  Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

  Nay! For perchance that poppy crowned God

  Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed

  Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod

  Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,

  Death is too rude, too obvious a key

  To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

  And Love! That noble madness, whose august

  And inextinguishable might can slay

  The soul with honeyed drugs, – alas! I must

  From such sweet ruin play the runaway,

  Although too constant memory never can

  Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

  Which for a little season made my youth

  So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence

  That all the chiding of more prudent Truth

  Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, – O Hence

 
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!

  Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss

  My lips have drunk enough, – no more, no more, –

  Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow

  Back to the troubled waters of this shore

  Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now

  The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,

  Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

  More barren – ay, those arms will never lean

  Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul

  In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;

  Some other head must wear that aureole,

  For I am Hers who loves not any man

  Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.

  Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,

  And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,

  With net and spear and hunting equipage

  Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,

  But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell

  Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

  Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy

  Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud

  Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy

  And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed

  In wonder at her feet, not for the sake

  Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

  Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!

  And, if my lips be music-less, inspire

  At least my life: was not thy glory hymned

  By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre

  Like Aeschylos at well-fought Marathon,

  And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

  And yet I cannot tread the Portico

  And live without desire, fear and pain,

  Or nurture that wise calm which long ago

  The grave Athenian master taught to men,

  Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,

  To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

  Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,

  Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,

  Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse

  Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne

  Is childless; in the night which she had made

  For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

  Nor much with Science do I care to climb,

  Although by strange and subtle witchery

  She draw the moon from heaven; the Muse of Time

  Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry

  To no less eager eyes; often indeed

  In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

  How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war

  Against a little town, and panoplied

  In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,

  White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede

  Between the waving poplars and the sea

  Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

  Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,

  And on the nearer side a little brood

  Of careless lions holding festival!

  And stood amazed at such hardihood,

  And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,

  And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

  Some unfrequented height, and coming down

  The autumn forests treacherously slew

  What Sparta held most dear and was the crown

  Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew

  How God had staked an evil net for him

  In the small bay at Salamis, – and yet, the page grows dim,

  Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel

  With such a goodly time too out of tune

  To love it much: for like the Dial’s wheel

  That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon

  Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes

  Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

  O for one grand unselfish simple life

  To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills

  Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife

  Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,

  Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly

  Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

  Speak ye Rydalian laurels! Where is He

  Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul

  Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty

  Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal

  Where Love and Duty mingle! him at least

  The most high Laws were glad of, He had sat at Wisdom’s feast,

  But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote

  The clarion watchword of each Grecian school

  And follow none, the flawless sword which smote

  The pagan Hydra is an effete tool

  Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now

  Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

  One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!

  Gone is that last dear son of Italy,

  Who being man died for the sake of God,

  And whose un-risen bones sleep peacefully,

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,

  Thou marble lily of the lily town! Let not the lour

  Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or

  The Arno with its tawny troubled gold

  O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror

  Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old

  When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty

  Walked like a Bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

  Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell

  With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,

  Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell

  With which oblivion buries dynasties

  Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,

  As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

  He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome.,

  He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,

  And now lies dead by that empyreal dome

  Which overtops Valdarno hung in air

  By Brunelleschi – O Melpomene

  Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

  Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies

  That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine

  Forget awhile their discreet emperies,

  Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine

  Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,

  And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,

  Let some young Florentine each eventide

  Bring coronals of that enchanted flower

  Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,

  And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies

  Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes.

  Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,

  Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim

  Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings

  Of the eternal chanting Cherubim

  Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away

  Into a moonless void, – and yet, though he is dust and clay,

  He is not dead, the immemorial Fates

  Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain,

  Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!

  Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain!

  For the vile thing he hated lurks within

  Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

  Still what avails it that she sought her cave

  That murderous moth
er of red harlotries?

  At Munich on the marble architrave

  The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas

  Which wash Aegina fret in loneliness

  Not mirroring their beauty, so our lives grow colourless

  For lack of our ideals, if one star

  Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust

  Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war

  Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust

  Which was Mazzini once! Rich Niobe

  For all her stony sorrows hath her sons, but Italy!

  What Easter Day shall make her children rise,

  Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet

  Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes

  Shall see them bodily? O it were meet

  To roll the stone from off the sepulchre

  And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of Her

  Our Italy! our mother visible!

  Most blessed among nations and most sad,

  For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell

  That day at Aspromonte and was glad

  That in an age when God was bought and sold

  One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

  See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves

  Bind the sweet feet of Mercy: Poverty

  Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives