Poems by Oscar Wilde Part 1

Poems.

by Oscar Wilde.

HeLAS!

TO _drift with every pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d_: _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 pa.s.sions 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, G.o.d 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 gla.s.s, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pa.s.s, 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 sh.e.l.l.

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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Circa.s.sian 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 s.h.i.+elds 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 s.h.i.+fting 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! O stormy deep!

Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, O Cromwell's England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign sh.o.r.e Possess the flower of English land- Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound The whole round world with nets of gold, If hidden in our heart is found The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride, Pine-forest-like, on every main?

Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?

Where is our English chivalry?

Wild gra.s.ses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send!

O wasted dust! O senseless clay!

Is this the end! is this the end!

Peace, peace! we wrong the n.o.ble dead To vex their solemn slumber so; Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall descry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these crimson seas of war.

TO MILTON