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Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde
Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde
It is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde's early verses may be
of interest to a large public at present familiar only with the always
popular BALLAD OF READING GAOL, also included in this volume. The
poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex
years old, and though never, until recently, well received by the
critics, have survived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able
to make for themselves the obvious and striking contrasts between
these first and last phases of Oscar Wilde's literary activity. The
intervening period was devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose,
fiction, essays, and criticism.
Robert Ross Reform Club, April 5, 1911
Contents
The Ballad Of Reading Gaol Ave Imperatrix To My Wife - With A Copy Of
My Poems Magdalen Walks Theocritus - A Villanelle Greece Portia Fabien
Dei Franchi Phedre Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine
Chapel Ave Maria Gratia Plena Libertatis Sacra Fames Roses And Rue
From 'The Garden Of Eros' The Harlot's House From 'The Burden Of Itys'
Flower of Love
NOTE
At the end of the complete text will be found a shorter version based
on the original draft of the poem. This is included for the benefit
of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too
long for declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without
officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary
executor, by falling back on a text which represents the author's
first scheme for a poem - never intended of course for recitation.
Robert Ross
Poem: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
In memoriam of C. T. W. Sometimes trooper of The Royal Horse Guards
Obiit H.M. Prison Reading, Berkshire July 7th, 1896
I
He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And
blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket
cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay; But I never
saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little
tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud
that went With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was
wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice
behind me whispered low, 'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.'
Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel, And the
sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though
I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought Quickened his step, and why He looked
upon the garish day With such a wistful eye; The man had killed the
thing he loved, And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some
do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does
it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The
kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some
do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man
kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame On a day of dark disgrace, Nor have a
noose about his neck, Nor a cloth upon his face, Nor drop feet
foremost through the floor Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men Who watch him night and day; Who watch
him when he tries to weep, And when he tries to pray; Who watch him
lest himself should rob The prison of its prey.
He does not wake at dawn to see Dread figures throng his room, The
shivering Chaplain robed in white, The Sheriff stern with gloom, And
the Governor all in shiny black, With the yellow face of Doom.
He does not rise in piteous haste To put on convict-clothes, While
some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes Each new and
nerve-twitched pose, Fingering a watch whose little ticks Are like
horrible hammer-blows.
He does not know that sickening thirst That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs, That the throat may thirst
no more.
He does not bend his head to hear The Burial Office read, Nor, while
the terror of his soul Tells him he is not dead, Cross his own coffin,
as he moves Into the hideous shed.
He does not stare upon the air Through a little roof of glass: He does
not pray with lips of clay For his agony to pass; Nor feel upon his
shuddering cheek The kiss of Caiaphas.
II
Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard, In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little
tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every wandering
cloud that trailed Its ravelled fleeces by.
He did not wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dare To try to
rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair: He only looked
upon the sun, And drank the morning air.
He did not wring his hands nor weep, Nor did he peek or pine, But he
drank the air as though it held Some healthful anodyne; With open
mouth he drank the sun As though it had been wine!
And I and all the souls in pain, Who tramped the other ring, Forgot if
we ourselves had done A great or little thing, And watched with gaze
of dull amaze The man who had to swing.
And strange it was to see him pass With a step so light and gay, And
strange it was to see him look So wistfully at the day, And strange it
was to think that he Had such a debt to pay.
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the springtime shoot: But
grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And,
green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is that seat of grace For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band Upon a scaffold high, And through a
murderer's collar take His last look at the sky?
It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance
to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet
with nimble feet To dance upon the air!
So with curious eyes and sick surmise We watched him day by day, And
wondered if each one of us Would end the self-same way, For none can
tell to what red Hell His sightless soul may stray.
At last the dead man walked no more Amongst the Trial Men, And I knew
that he was standing up In the black dock's dreadful pen, And that
never would I see his face In God's sweet world again.
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm We had crossed each other's
way: But we made no sign, we said no word, We had no word to say; For
we did not meet in the holy night, But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both, Two outcast men we were: The world
had thrust us from its heart, And God from out His care: And the iron
gin that waits for Sin Had caught us in its snare.
III
In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard, And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air Beneath the leaden sky, And by each
side a Warder walked, For fear the man might die.
Or else he sat with those who watched His anguish night and day; Who
watched him when he rose to weep, And when he crouched to pray; Who
watched him lest himself should rob Their scaffold of its prey.
The Governor was strong upon The Regulations Act: The Doctor said that
Death was but A scientific fact: And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.
And twice a day he smoked his pipe, And drank his quart of beer: His
soul was resolute, and held No hiding-place for fear; He often said
that he was glad The hangman's hands were near.
But why he said so strange a thing No Warder dared to ask: For he to
whom a watcher's doom Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his
lips, And make his face a mask.
Or else he might be moved, and try To comfort or console: And what
should Human Pity do Pent up in Murderers' Hole? What word of grace in
such a place Could help a brother's soul?
With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools' Parade! We
did not care: we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade: And shaven
head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade.
We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We
rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining
rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the
pails.
We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We
banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in
the heart of every man Terror was lying still.
So still it lay that every day Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: And
we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as
we tramped in from work, We passed an open grave.
With yawning mouth the yellow hole Gaped for a living thing; The very
mud cried out for blood To the thirsty asphalte ring: And we knew that
ere one dawn grew fair Some prisoner had to swing.
Right in we went, with soul intent On Death and Dread and Doom: The
hangman, with his little bag, Went shuffling through the gloom: And
each man trembled as he crept Into his numbered tomb.
That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and
down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars
that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer.
He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land, The
watchers watched him as he slept, And could not understand How one
could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand.
But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So
we - the fool, the fraud, the knave - That endless vigil kept, And
through each brain on hands of pain Another's terror crept.
Alas! it is a fearful thing To feel another's guilt! For, right
within, the sword of Sin Pierced to its poisoned hilt, And as molten
lead were the tears we shed For the blood we had not spilt.
The Warders with their shoes of felt Crept by each padlocked door, And
peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, Grey figures on the floor, And
wondered why men knelt to pray Who never prayed before.
All through the night we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were The plumes upon a hearse: And
bitter wine upon a sponge Was the savour of Remorse.
The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, But never came the day: And
crooked shapes of Terror crouched, In the corners where we lay: And
each evil sprite that walks by night Before us seemed to play.
They glided past, they glided fast, Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon Of delicate turn and twist, And
with formal pace and loathsome grace The phantoms kept their tryst.
With mop and mow, we saw them go, Slim shadows hand in hand: About,
about, in ghostly rout They trod a saraband: And the damned grotesques
made arabesques, Like the wind upon the sand!
With the pirouettes of marionettes, They tripped on pointed tread: But
with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, As their grisly masque they
led, And loud they sang, and long they sang, For they sang to wake the
dead.
'Oho!' they cried, 'The world is wide, But fettered limbs go lame! And
once, or twice, to throw the dice Is a gentlemanly game, But he does
not win who plays with Sin In the secret House of Shame.'
No things of air these antics were, That frolicked with such glee: To
men whose lives were held in gyves, And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, Most terrible to see.
Around, around, they waltzed and wound; Some wheeled in smirking
pairs; With the mincing step of a demirep Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, Each helped us at our
prayers.
The morning wind began to moan, But still the night went on: Through
its giant loom the web of gloom Crept till each thread was spun: And,
as we prayed, we grew afraid Of the Justice of the Sun.
The moaning wind went wandering round The weeping prison-wall: Till
like a wheel of turning steel We felt the minutes crawl: O moaning
wind! what had we done To have such a seneschal?
At last I saw the shadowed bars, Like a lattice wrought in lead, Move
right across the whitewashed wall That faced my three-plank bed, And I
knew that somewhere in the world God's dreadful dawn was red.
At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still, But the
sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill, For the
Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to kill.
He did not pass in purple pomp, Nor ride a moon-white steed. Three
yards of cord and a sliding board Are all the gallows' need: So with
rope of shame the Herald came To do the secret deed.
We were as men who through a fen Of filthy darkness grope: We did not
dare to breathe a prayer, Or to give our anguish scope: Something was
dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.
For Man's grim Justice goes its way, And will not swerve aside: It
slays the weak, it slays the strong, It has a deadly stride: With iron
heel it slays the strong, The monstrous parricide!
We waited for the stroke of eight: Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate That makes a man
accursed, And Fate will use a running noose For the best man and the
worst.
We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to come: So,
like things of stone in a valley lone, Quiet we sat and dumb: But each
man's heart beat thick and quick, Like a madman on a drum!
With sudden shock the prison-clock Smote on the shivering air, And
from all the gaol rose up a wail Of impotent despair, Like the sound
that frightened marshes hear From some leper in his lair.
And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream, We saw
the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam, And heard the
prayer the hangman's snare Strangled into a scream.
And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry, And
the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For
he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.